WordPress Buys Plinky to Help Bloggers with Writers’ Block

Automattic, the company behind the popular blogging software WordPress and the equally popular blogging platform at WordPress.com, has just acquired Plinky, a service designed to help writers, or bloggers, get over writers’ block. Plinky will now be integrated into the WordPress.com platform and bloggers are encouraged to post their results using the service.

“Do you ever think ‘Ugh, I’d totally write a new blog post, if I just had something to say?’ Or maybe, ‘I’m sick and tired of writer’s block but I don’t know what to do about it!’,” Joy Victory, the ‘Editorial Czar at Automattic, wrote.

“We’ve all been there — those days when the light bulb seems dim, if not burned out. To give you a little creative push and get that writerly mojo flowing again, we’ve added a new service called Plinky.com. Each weekday, Plinky provides a prompt — like a question or a challenge — and you type in an answer,” she added.

Plinky does this either with inspiring questions, like “What is your favorite summer memory?” or with prompts about what you could write about. Depending on the prompt, the answer could be just text or include photos, videos, maps and so on.

To use Plinky with WordPress.com, you have to create a new account for the service and then connect it with your WordPress.com one. After that, let your imagination loose and see what Plinky asks of you. If you tag your post with ‘plinky’ it will be showcased on the Plinky tag page along with others that have used the service.

Plinky was created by Thing Labs which currently develops the rather popular Twitter application Brizzly. In fact, it was the company’s main project before the focus shifted to the Twitter app. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but the price tag is estimated to be rather small.