WordPress fans! I have a very good news for you! Answers Corporation , creators of the leading answer engine offering Answers.com and WikiAnswers.com, today announced a partnership with Automattic, Inc., owners of the popular WordPress.com blogging service. Starting today, bloggers using WordPress.com as their blogging platform will be offered an integrated tool to easily link words in their posts to definitions and explanations from Answers.com. The service will also be available as a plug-in (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/answerlinks/) for users of the more customizable WordPress.org service.

To use the new feature, WordPress.com bloggers will press the AnswerLinks icon (http://www.answers.com/main/wordpress_howto.jsp) on the WordPress editing toolbar to trigger an application that will suggest terms for automatic linking. Typical suggestions will include names, technical terms or obscure language that may not be familiar to some readers. Only words confirmed by the author will be linked to definitions, assuring full editorial control.

I believe this will open a new era for WordPress users. This little plugin will help us maintain the flow of our writing, without needing to pause to provide explanations inside the text. It’s also a quick and simple way to keep readers from the distractions that cause them to leave, in search of an explanation for an unfamiliar reference.

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