Anybody who blogs knows about plug-ins.  For those who don’t, plug-ins are mini ‘programs’ that you can install on your blog that provide a specific function, usually to automate common tasks. One plug-in that I have installed is Arkayne. Arkayne is a Valley-based (Scottsdale) company that has affiliates throughout the US.  It is led by CEO Nicholas Aretakis and CTO Paul Kenjora.  To learn more, you can follow the Arkayne blog.

Unlike similar plug-ins, Arkayne allows you to control whose links you post, limiting them to people I’ve endorsed as part of my network. Thus it not only highlights other posts related to the topic, it highlights other bloggers that I know or support.  In other words, it does what social media does best‑connect me to interesting ideas and cool people.

Alas, the Arkayne plug-in doesn’t always work well with my current set up for whatever reason. When it does, however, you’ll see links appear below my posts to related content on my site and to other sites in my network.  Not only does this expose my readers to more of my posts, increasing the time visitors spend on my site and the number of page views (important analytics for bloggers), it also brings in new readers from other sites in my Arkayne network.  Conversely, it exposes my visitors to other blogs that I recommend.

Best yet, it’s free to use. But as Tyler Hurst points out, nothing is free. Everything costs time and money to create. To help get the word out about their product Arkayne is currently running a contest for an iPod Touch to anyone who writes a post tweets about it. While a large part of my motivation for this post is to win the prize, I also want to give Nicholas, Paul and the rest of the team a big THANK-YOU for creating a great product available free of charge and encourage others to use it.

If you are a blogger, I recommend you register and check out this plug-in.

For the rest of you, be sure to click one on of their recommend sites.

This is day 12 in my 28 Day Blogging Challenge. 16 days to go.

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