What 10,000 Words is thankful for this year

By Lauren Rabaino on November 25, 2010 2:24 PM

1. Blackbird Pie

Twitter made it easier than ever to embed tweets in blog posts this year, thanks to the introduction of Blackbird Pie. Blackbird Pie is simple: In goes the URL of the tweet you’d like to embed and out comes CSS-formatted HTML.

More recently, Blackbird Pie was enabled on all WordPress.com blogs. A plugin called Twitter Blackbird Pie brings that functionality to self-hosted WordPress.org blogs.

For so many reasons, embedding a tweet in HTML definitely beats posting a screenshot in a blog post. For that, I’m thankful.

– Ethan Klapper

2. #wjchat

Tools are useful, but I think one of the most valuable ways a journalist can spend his or her time is exchanging ideas with others. I’m thankful for #wjchat, a weekly Twitter chat in which web journalists discuss all angles of a topic that influences their work. Last night was kind of a potluck of questions, but below are a few examples of recent topics. They all link to the chat’s transcripts, and are worth a leisurely read while you’re digesting your turkey.

(As a sidenote, congrats one of the chat’s co-creators, Robert Hernandez, newly elected Online News Association board member. He’s a professor at USC-Annenberg, has the keys to the coolest Twitter handle, and if you were at #ONA10, you’d recognize him as the guy who asked if Patch was evil).

The #wjchat takes place every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. EST. I recommend usingÂ TweetChat if you plan to participate.

- Kevin Loker

3. Path’s foray into photo networking

Last week, a new style of networking emerged in the form of Path.

What makes Path different? For one thing, it’s a photo-sharing network app for your iPhone (Android and Blackberry apps are apparently in the works). For another, it limits your network to only 50 “friends” who can see what photos you upload.

And why, even though I don’t have an iPhone (or a smartphone, period), am I thankful for Path? Because it’s new. It’s different. Having to limit your network to only 50 people could induce anxiety, but it’s nevertheless refreshing to see a network in the news that’s not Facebook.

– Chris Dunn

4. WordPress 3.0 and the Twenty Ten Theme

WordPress 3.0 launched this year to include some of the following awesome features:

Menus – no more editing files to exclude categories and pages — just drag n’ drop!
Merge of MU and WordPress, making it possible to run one blog or ten million from the same installation
Bulk updating of plugins
Custom header and background APIs
Improved Custom Post Types and Custom Taxonomies including hierarchical (category-style) support.
Support for Shortlinks.

With arrival of WordPress 3.0 “Thelonious” was the launch of a brand new default theme called Twenty Ten, which was built to make the most of all WordPress’s brand new features.

The theme is an amazing foundation for both those new to WordPress and to advanced designers. After its launch was the first time I had ever dabbled in WordPress child themes.

As a lover of open source and a WordPress enthusiast, this release was a huge milestone and a testament to what can happen in an open, collaborative community of great minds.

– Lauren Rabaino

5. Our readers

Thank you for your continued support of our blogging. It’s because of you that we can keep doing what we do to try to help you be better at what you do. So whether you’re a producer, photographer, videographer, editor, former journalist, designer or just someone who loves storytelling, we appreciate your readership, comments and tweets. Keep ‘em coming!