Geek Of The Week July 23, 2010

I have been wanting to write this post for a long time but have postponed it for a variety of reason. Now the time has come to share the completely awesome that is clp.ly! And as clp.ly is using my site as their demo site today at the SF NewTech Summer Social, I thought it would be appropriate to award them Geek of the Week and walk you through some of the awesome that is clp.ly.

I’ve mentioned clp.ly quite often on Twitter and have been getting a lot of questions about it. My default answer has been something like, “It it too much to explain in 140 characters.” You may have already seen posts where I’ve used it or seen the “Clip This Story” button on the bottom of my posts but are not sure what it is (scroll down the bottom now and then scroll back up if you have not yet noticed it).

For me, this service is an absolute dream! Every time I use it, I get really giddy and squee because it makes sharing information so easy and displays it in a beautiful and shiny manner. If you do any type of blogging or writing and you are needing to quote or display another website, clp.ly is the service for you. Gone are the days of having to take a screenshot of the website, spending time linking and spending an extra few minutes formating quotes.

Not only does it format what you are wanting to display in an aesthetically pleasing manner, but it automatically links to the site you are clipping, quoting and sharing, ensuring proper attribution. Clp.ly is easy to install on any website. It also has a smart bookmark that you can easily add to Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer. Another nice feature are the stats provided to registered users. These include: number of times a short link has been clicked, trackbacks and where else a quote has been shared.

I am now going to attempt to walk you through some of the fantabulous clp.ly functions, as well as a sooper sekrit beta feature (I have permission to share, so after today it won’t be that sooper sekrit any longer) that is enabled on my website.

Senario #1: You Come Across A Website or An Article You Want To Feature

For this demonstration, I’m going to use John Anealio’s website (my Featured Independent Musician for July).

If you have clp.ly installed in your toolbar, then it is simple. You click the “Clip with clp.ly”.

If you do not have clp.ly installed in your toolbar, then you go to clp.ly and enter the url in the space provided.

And PRESTO! You are taken to a handy dandy format page, where you can do all kinds of things.

And if there is text from that website which you want to quote, once again, it is simple. If you have clp.ly installed, highlight the text you want to quote:

Click “Clip with clp.ly” button on your toolbar, where you are taken to the format quote screen:

Making the following quote:

If you have not created a clp.ly account (unless a website is enabled with the sooper sekrit beta which I’ll tell you about in a bit), then you are only able to create screen clips and not quotes. However, if you do create a screen clip as demonstrated above, you can click on the all the different tabs to see what has been quoted, history and page stats for that screen clip and copy and share any pre-existing quotes.

Senario #2: You Come Across A Website That Is Clp.ly Enabled And You Want To Clip and/or Quote It

I think this has to be one of the coolest things ever! Especially if you are like me and are always looking for easy ways to allow others to share you content while ensuring proper attribution.

If you come across a website that is clp.ly enabled (such as mine), there is a really simple way to share content. Scroll down to the bottom of a post, where you will find the following:

Click it, and once again you are taken to a formating page. And as above, you can do all kinds of things with the clip.

Now, here is something REALLY FREAKING COOL! Time for me to talk about the Sooper Sekrit (but not for much longer) Beta. Hopefully soon this next feature becomes standard on all clp.ly enabled sites because it ROCKS MY SOCKS! This function may take a while to catch on but honest to FSM, it makes me SQUEE every time I play with it. And by using it, you do not need to create a clp.ly account (I think you should anyway) in order to create quotes.

Awesome Sooper Sekrit Beta Funtion #1:

You find an article on my site that you want to share:

You know the site is clp.ly enabled but don’t want to scroll down to the bottom of the page to hit the “Clip This Story” button. What do you do?

1. Highlight a section of the text.
2. Hit CTRL+C or right click, copy.
3. The following will pop up, asking you, “What would you like to do with the text you copied?”
   
   
   
4. If you want to create a quote, click “Format for posting”.
   
   
   
   Clicking it will take you to screen such as this :

   

   Clipped from: clp.ly (share this clip)

   (yours will look a bit different and more like this)

   
   
   

   (Giving you a quote, which looks like this)

   

   I have had the pleasure of interviewing three of my favourite more well known geeks, Wil Wheaton, Dr. Phil Plait and Shane Nickerson.

   From Julia Sherred (share this quote)
5. If you want to create a screen clip, click “Make a screen clip”.
   
   
   
   Clicking it will you take you to screen such as this:

   

   Clipped from: clp.ly (share this clip)
6. Try it now!

Now there is yet another awesome thing you can do with this sooper sekrit beta feature! You come across something on my site and you want to see what other articles may be on the web about the same subject. Using the same page above as an example, you want to know what other articles are on the web about Wil Wheaton, Phil Plait and Shane Nickerson. Watch and be prepared to squee!

1. Highlight a section that is 8 words or less (in this case, the words “Wil Wheaton, Dr. Phil Plait and Shane Nickerson”).
2. Hit CTRL+C or right click, copy.
3. Once again, the following will pop up, asking you, “What would you like to do with the text you copied?” But notice this time there is an added option:
   
   
   
4. You could once again follow steps 4 and 5 above OR:
5. Click on the “Search for copied text” option
   
   
   
   which will open up a new tab with your Google search results.
6. Try it now!

This, in a nut shell, is clp.ly. It really is a publishing dream come true. Especially on the internets where you have the possibility of running across something on daily basis that you which to share. Instead of opening up screen capture software or hitting print screen and then having to save in some form of “paint” program, uploading images, formatting, linking, with a click of a button in your web browser, all the work is done for you. Choose your sharing method and you are set. And if you are like me where you’re an OCD inflicted formatting junkie, there are a lot of formatting options for you to play with.

So play with clp.ly! Create an account. Clip. Quote. Share. And if you do so now, you may just win an iPad!

Related Posts:

• Geek Of The Week January 20, 2012
• Geek Of The Week January 13, 2012
• Geek Of The Week July 29, 2011
• Geek Of The Week May 13, 2011
• Geek Of The Week October 15, 2010
• Why I Blog