WordPress and Google Buzz

Perhaps the most exciting news on the internet this week was arrival of Google Buzz, a new way for Google junkies to connect socially by sharing information and interacting with each other’s posts directly within their Gmail accounts. People are clamoring to let the world know what they think the implications for Facebook and Twitter will be. Many of us who have long enjoyed Google Reader as a media aggregator were delighted to see Buzz come on the scene. Whether you like the Buzz feature or not, people are definitely using it. There’s no question about that. Why not let them use it by sharing your blog site, posts and pages? :) If the Buzz continues as successfully as it has so far, perhaps we’ll begin to see it added as a staple to all the social media share buttons icon packages and plugins. Here are a few of the ways you can get Google Buzz incorporated into your WordPress and BuddyPress sites right now:

1. “Buzz This” Plugin for WordPress

Yes, someone’s already made a plugin to incorporate a “Buzz This” button in WordPress. After you download and install it, you can configure it to show before or after the content on posts and pages. This enables people to easily share content with others who use Google Reader and are already connected to share similar interests among themselves. Want your post to go viral with people who already read dozens of blogs per day? Make sure you’ve got share buttons available to those Google junkies.

2. Make Your Own Button to Add Anywhere in Your Template

If you want to make your own button, you can add this code anywhere in your template files – the site header, sidebar, comments, etc. If you prefer not to have it appearing sitewide, you can use it on select posts and pages by pasting it directly into the post/page editor.

<a href='javascript:var%20b=document.body;var%20GR________bookmarklet_domain="http://www.google.com";if(b&amp;&amp;!document.xmlVersion){void(z=document.createElement("script"));void(z.src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/link-bookmarklet.js");void(b.appendChild(z));}else{}'>
<img src="http://IMAGE HERE" border="0" alt="Share in Google Buzz"/></a>

Credits: Jamie Martin at Pastie

*Note: This will only work if your user has Google Reader enabled to share posts as one of the “Connected Sites” using Buzz, which they likely will, as it is the default setting.

3. Share Your Google Buzz Posts on Your Site with Google Buzz ER Plugin

This plugin will post a list of your buzz posts on your site, as you can see in the thumbnail. Download the plugin, install, and add the template tags to start displaying buzz posts.

4. Add the Ability to Share BuddyPress Profile Links With a “Buzz This” Button

This will allow you to share any tab on the BuddyPress individual profiles page, including Activity, Profile, Friends, or Groups. Add this to your bp-themes/bp-default/members/single/member-header.php file inside the #item-buttons section just before the closing div tag:

<div class="generic-button" id="send-private-message">
					<a href='javascript:var%20b=document.body;var%20GR________bookmarklet_domain="http://www.google.com";if(b&amp;&amp;!document.xmlVersion){void(z=document.createElement("script"));void(z.src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/link-bookmarklet.js");void(b.appendChild(z));}else{}'>"Buzz This" Profile</a>
				</div>

5. Add “Buzz This” to Individual BuddyPress Activity Stream Posts

You can add this to the activity menu next to ‘Reply’ and ‘Favorite’ in this file: bp-themes/bp-default/activity/entry.php
Locate this:

<?php if ( is_user_logged_in() ) : ?>
				<?php if ( !bp_get_activity_is_favorite() ) : ?>
					<a href="" class="fav" title="<?php _e( 'Mark as Favorite', 'buddypress' ) ?>"><?php _e( 'Favorite', 'buddypress' ) ?></a>
				<?php else : ?>
					<a href="" class="unfav" title="<?php _e( 'Remove Favorite', 'buddypress' ) ?>"><?php _e( 'Remove Favorite', 'buddypress' ) ?></a>
				<?php endif; ?>

Then add the link directly after it:

 <a href='javascript:var%20b=document.body;var%20GR________bookmarklet_domain="http://www.google.com";if(b&amp;&amp;!document.xmlVersion){void(z=document.createElement("script"));void(z.src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/link-bookmarklet.js");void(b.appendChild(z));}else{}'>
Buzz This</a>
			<?php endif;?>

These Google Buzz tweaks may not be suitable for every WordPress site, but if you’re interested in satisfying your Google junkie visitors these are definitely great ways to get started. :)