Many sites we work with collect links from around the web and then either present this feed of links on their sites in a widget or turn them into daily (or weekly) roundup posts and email newsletters.

To improve the workflow for curating and publishing these roundups, we've created a new WordPress plugin called Link Roundups.

The plugin borrows some patterns and a bit of the original code from a plugin called Argo Links, but has been almost completely rewritten with a number of new features added (if you are a current Argo Links user, we've included an update script to help you migrate).

Features

Some of the key features of the plugin include:

A browser bookmarklet to collect links as you browse, add your own description, tags and then save the link directly to your WordPress site, all without having to leave the site you're on. This bookmarklet will also attempt to automatically pull in the title, source and a featured image for the links so you don't have to populate these fields manually.

Widgets for saved links and link roundups to display the links you've saved or your recently published roundups in any WordPress widget area.

A WordPress custom post type called Link Roundups with a way to browse your saved links and compile roundup posts to be published on your site.

Integration with MailChimp to simplify the process of sending the roundup posts to your newsletter subscribers.

Plugin options to control the display of saved links in roundups, manually specify the anchor text to be used and a number of other nice enhancements to give you the flexibility to format link roundups the way you want.

Installation

You can find documentation and installation instructions on GitHub and the plugin is also now available from the WordPress.org plugin directory.

What's Next?

In our next release we plan to add the ability to share links you save directly to Facebook/Twitter at the same time as they are saved to your site, improve documentation and add a number of other features.

You can submit feature requests and see our plans for future releases on the project's GitHub repository. Feedback, bug reports and questions are most welcome!

Thanks!

Finally, we want to thank INN member Fresh Energy who funded some of the development of this plugin as part of our recent redesign of their Midwest Energy News site. Thanks also to Aspen Journalism for offering some helpful feedback.