There are two reasons why I'm looking forward to next month's WordCamp New Zealand 2010.

First, I expect to expand my WordPress know-how. I use the software to manage this web site and one for my other half's new business. You can run a WordPress site with zero technical knowledge, but I want to dig deeper.

However, although raw knowledge is useful, that's not the only reason I'm going to WordCamp. It's not even the main reason.

At WordCamp I'll meet dozens of like-minded people grappling with similar issues. We'll swap ideas and experiences. In some cases I'll be doing the learning. In others I'll be doing the teaching. Either way, our collective pool of knowledge will increase.

I've found this way of learning motivates me. I'll come away with extra knowledge and fresh ideas, but I'll also be charged-up.

There's another great aspect to this kind of learning. Although it is busy, it gives you the time and mental space to reflect on what you already know. You can view things from a different perspective and to pull the various threads together.

I’m looking to compile a list of New Zealand sites built using WordPress.

To be listed a site needs to be:

• Active – for now that means at least one post since 1 June 2010.
• About New Zealand, written by someone living in New Zealand or about strictly New Zealand topics.
• Either hosted at WordPress.com or self-hosted using WordPress.org software.
• Not spam – anything that looks like spam will not be included. This includes site with spam-like advertising. My decision on this is final.

If you have a eligible site that’s not already listed please leave a comment below and I’ll add your details.

New Zealand’s WordPress sites:

Homepaddock A rural perspective with a blue tint Ele Ludemann

Dim Post It is difficult not to write satire Danyl McLauchlan

MacDoctor Politics and Medicine: A Lethal Combination  Dr. Jim McVeagh

The Inquiring Mind A personal take on matters Adam Smith

TVHE The Visible Hand in Economics Matt Nolan

G Blog A community of green voices Green Party members

The Evolving Newsroom observations on news and journalism Julie Starr

Journalista On word use and jargon John Spavin

Bargain Betty Money saving tips Diana Clement

Love Plant Life Devoted to useful plants and gardening Anna Butterfield

it.gen.nz Technology and society, Colin Jackson

KnowIT Science, tech and WordPress, Miraz Jordan

Mac Tips, Practical advice for Apple users, Miraz Jordan

Toothpix Mainly about food, Lyn Potter

Ask Rachel Advice column, Rachel Goodchild

Little Miss Pink Hair Fashion, books and design. Susie Goodchild

Want to publish directly from Google Docs to your WordPress site? Setting-up Google Docs is a chore, but once you've done the hard work once, it's easy. Here's how I did it.

Google Docs may not be the world's best word processor, but you won't find a better way of collaborating on documents. Sharing and collaboration works far better than with Microsoft Word.

Recently I used Google Docs to edit some shared documents which would eventually become WordPress posts.

After writing the first post, I cut and pasted the text into WordPress. It wasn't pretty. Eventually I used WordPress' paste as plain text function, but that loses formatting.

I decided to investigate posting directly from Google Docs to WordPress.

There are a number of guides explaining how to do this, but an online applications like Google Docs is a moving target – some of the steps explained in the guides have changed in recent updates.

Here's what I did:

1. Get WordPress ready to receive Google Docs. Go to the Dashboard, select Settings, then Writing.

2. Select the box where it says:
XML-RPC Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols.

3. In Google Docs, open the document you'd like to post in WordPress.

4. Pull down the Share menu in the top right hand corner of the screen and select Publish as web page.

5. You should see two items, the second says This document has not been published to your blog.

6. If this is the first time you've tried posting to your WordPress site from Google Docs, there will be a message saying: You need to set your blog site settings before you can post documents to your blog.

7. Click on the link.

8. If you use a hosted WordPress.com blog, then click the first button (which is selected by default) and choose WordPress.com from the pull-down menu next to the word Provider. If you run a self-hosted WordPress site, you'll need to select the My own server / custom option then choose Metaweblog API and your site address. It's important to end the xmlrpc.php – which is normally in the home directory.

9. Add your user name and password.

The process isn't foolproof – I still ended up needing to edit some HTML code which came through from Google Docs – but if you've build your workflow around Google's tools, this is relatively straightforward.

Lijit looks useful. It is a search application installed on this site as a WordPress plug-in. You can see the Lijit search widget about halfway down the sidebar on the right of this screen.

In theory Lijit improves WordPress search and drags in social network content. I've seen no evidence of this.

So far, after a month or so of using the plug-in it's been used a total of 16 times. Over that period there have been more than 5300 visitors to the site, so the strike rate is incredibly low. No-one has clicked the button in past week.

There was a fancy-looking Lijit widget, but this was the slowest-loading part of my site, so I switched back to the plain text version. This may explain why there's so little activity.

I'm going to persevere for a few more weeks, but unless I can find a good reason to stick with Lijit, I'm going to drop the application.

Is there something important about Lijit I'm not getting here?

Update: I've removed Lijit since writing this.

Google Related Links is a tool to help push traffic around a web site.

In theory it does the same job as Zemanta's Interesting Articles feature – it allows you to add a list of related stories and Google searches to pages.

At the moment there's a test page at Googlelabs: http://relatedlinks.googlelabs.com/.

It isn't as elegant as Zemanta – and it certainly doesn't integrate well with WordPress. But its results are interesting. I tested the service on my earlier post: Windows 7 is great. Its price isn’t.

Here's what it came back with:

Related Links by Google
Norton's troubled Internet Security Windows 7 beta at Bill Bennett
Microsoft's Security Essentials is almost un-noticable at Bill Bennett
Layoffs no panacea | Bill Bennett
Norton Internet Security – the alternatives at Bill Bennett
In memoriam Twitter at Bill Bennett
When Outlook trumps Gmail at Bill Bennett
Go East young man (or woman) | Bill Bennett
Computer security guide – what are the main threats? at Bill Bennett

Related Searches by Google
windows 7
windows 7 download
windows 7 review
isn
isn't it

As you can see only two of the eight "related links" are directly relevant. Although another might just qualify if we are generous. And only one of the five 'related searches' is useful. That's 3 and a half out of 13 or around a 23 percent success rate. Obviously some work is needed.

Regular readers may notice this web site has reverted to its minimalist look and feel. I've switched back for two reasons.

First, I wanted to cut down on the size of my pages – this format is quicker to download and displays better in a wider range of browsers – include those on mobile phones. It's also easy to read.

Second, I plan to customise the site's look and feel in coming weeks. This is an easier basis to work from.

WordPress aficionados will recognise the theme here is The Journalist by Lucian E Marin.

Regular readers will notice this site has changed recently.

There's a new look – or theme in WordPress' private language – and a handful of new features. This is because I've moved from a wordpress.com site to a self-hosted version of the site at billbennett.co.nz. Once things settle down – and a week after the move things still aren't right – I may comment more on the switch.

There are however a couple of pressing issues to worry about. First, I've arranged things so anyone visiting my old site is automatically transferred to the new one. The automatic redirection is largely working, but it isn't perfect.

There are a few information pages here with different URLs. It isn't important, but for a while I was using a redirection plug-in to route people looking for the old pages to the new replacements. This had to go as the plug-in was causing problems elsewhere.

My other problem is my online identity is closely tied to my old WordPress address. I'm registered with dozens of other sites as billbennettnz with pointers to the old site. While the redirection from wordpress.com to here is in operation this won't matter. I've paid for a year in advance and could go on paying for later years. But I'd prefer to either retire the old wordpress.com identity and create a new one or, even better, update that identity to reflect the new reality.

OK you're saying, why don't you Google for an answer to this? Or perhaps look for information on how to do this at the WordPress support site. Fair enough. But my need is so obscure that I don't have a clue about the terms to search for.

Halfdone says New Zealand has about 200 notable blogs. Google's Blogspot accounts for half of the total. WordPress.com is a shade under 20 percent. Typepad has only a four percent share and the rest are not immediately obvious.

Why does Blogspot (also known as Blogger) dominate?

Its technology seems dated and Blogspot sites look inferior to WordPress.com sites.

WordPress is intimidating for beginners, but far more flexible and, once mastered, is easier. It makes better use of graphics and  has many useful built-in features.

Blogspot dominates

At first, I assumed it is because Blogspot, being owned by Google, has a higher profile. It is easier to find and the Blogspot name is more descriptive of what it does. These things matter for raw beginners.

Safety may also be a reason. People know who and what Google is, so they feel comfortable. WordPress is obscure by comparison and something of an unknown.

There could be a mercenary reason. Blogspot allows users to place Google Ads on their blogs, which, theoretically at least, means they earn money. Not much. In fact, I doubt if anyone below the top ten New Zealand blogs has seen as much as a dollar from Google advertising.

WordPress doesn't allow Google ads on its hosted blogs. Occasionally WordPress may put one of its own ads on a WordPress.com blog.

Scrubone, who runs Halfdone, suggested the reason for Blogspot's success is that it's been around a lot longer than WordPress. This is true and it is a likely reason, even though many Blogspot sites on the list are recently created. Being the incumbent in a technology market is often enough for success.