I was working on a post the other day, and I noticed this:
So, I immediately started doing some research to figure out what this new thing was.
At first, I thought WP was jumping onto the Facebook bandwagon, and making “Like” buttons available to us self-hosted WP bloggers. But it has nothing to do with Facebook (other than the fact that Facebook has now made the “like” thumbs-up stamp of approval the newest, biggest thing).
In order for you to have a “Like” button on your blog, you must have a WP-hosted blog, and you must be signed in to your account. Now, if you are out in the blogosphere and you come a cross a post you really like, you can, well, “Like” it. This feature is akin to “starring” something in your Google Reader–it highlights that post for later. I often “star” posts in my Google Reader that I think I might like to repost or blog about later. Now you can do it without Google Reader, or without having to bookmark that post for later. At a later date, you can simply go to the “Like” menu, and if you pull it down, you can click on “posts I like” and they’ll all be saved up for you there.
The second part of this new feature is that it gives you the ability to repost that post. You simply click on the “Reblog this post” option in the drop-down menu, and WP will repost it to your blog, giving you the opportunity to add your comments.
WordPress is, essentially, helping us WP users to spread the WP love more easily. The Blogosphere has always been based on sharing and reposting, but this new feature may make it even easier to do that.
Only time will tell if it proves popular.
Click here to read the original announcement from WordPress.
