The Blog extension for Magento allows store owners to create an interactive two-way communication platform to provide your readers with up-to-date information on news, upcoming products, promotions, and get customers’ feedback. Today we’ve updated Blog to version 1.1 with the following new features: Post Title and Link to Post columns in Comment Manager grid While managing comments from the backend the administrator can see which post they are relevant to. Post timestamp Post timestamp allows you to set the date and time you would like the post to be published.

The following bugs have been fixed in Blog v. 1.1:

• HTML tags were counted in Summary Character Count field
• Mass action grid filter works incorrectly in comments grid
• Magento 1.11.0.0 – incorrect visibility of ReCAPTCHA
• Incorrect page title in administration panel
• Breadcrumbs improvements
• Issues with HTML validation
• Post title is not escaped
• Locale improvements

Download free Blog extension for Community Edition or update your Blog Enterprise Edition on the product page.

The Blog extension for Magento is reckoned among the best buzz and word of mouth marketing tips. It not only provides your regular customers with up-to-date information but brings additional visitors to your site, builds relevant SEO-friendly text links, and assists you in building sales strategy.

This update for Blog v.1.0.23 includes the features requested by our Forum members:

• Ability to duplicate postsPosting has become easier with the latest version of the Blog Magento extension. This module update saves you from the necessity to fill in standard post information any time you create a new blog post. All you need is to enter any existing post, press the ‘Duplicate Post’ button, and focus on your stellar content.

Read more…

aheadWorks opens its Blog to any guest author who has something to share about Magento – your own experience with Magento, some tips and tricks, your impressions from Magento conferences – whatever you like.

Please, leave your comments to become our author or email our beautiful Stasia Harlamova, at harlamova @ aheadworks.com.

Take this perfect opportunity to reach wide Magento community and become a valuable contributor to Magento info-world.

The Blog Magento extension from aheadWorks is reckoned among the best buzz and word of mouth marketing tips. It not only provides your regular customers with up-to-date information but brings additional visitors to your site, builds relevant SEO-friendly text links, and serves as assistance in building sales strategy.

We are glad to announce the release of new 1.0.22 version of Blog compatible with Magento CE 1.5.1.0. Morevover, the following features have been implemented as well:

• Blog RSS integrated with native RSS feed
• Multistore RSS
• Ability to switch on/off blog for different stores
• Latest posts widget

Some bugs have been fixed in Blog v.1.0.22:

• CSS minor fixes
• multistore problems
• post empty comments
• wrong post image URL inserted via WYSIWYG

Find more on the Blog page.

We are glad to announce the release of two new extensions versions – Ultimate SEO Suite 1.1 and Blog 1.0.21. The point here is that now URLs from Blog will get in the sitemap and Google sitemap. Moreover, since version 1.1 the Ultimate SEO Suite extension counts the quantity and size not only of product and CMS pages but the Blog URLs as well.

You can find the updated versions of the extensions on the Ultimate SEO Suite, Blog – Community Edition and Blog – Enterprise Edition pages.

The Magento Blog extension from aheadWorks is reckoned among the best buzz and word of mouth marketing tips. It not only provides your regular customers with up-to-date information but brings additional visitors to your site, builds relevant SEO-friendly text links, and serves as assistance in building sales strategy.

A blog gives you a noteworthy opportunity to communicate with your regular customers and casual visitors. With the Blog module you can create an interactive two-way communication platform to provide official information on your store news, upcoming products, promotions, and get customers’ feedback.

Blogging has proved to be called one of the best effective marketing tactics. If your customers feel that they are listened to and their needs are responded to, they are more likely to come back to your store again and again.

Want to learn more about your customers’ choices, views, and preferences? Just let people leave comments and listen what they say! Being a part of the blog community, your customers will openly exchange their thoughts and express their opinions. A blog, with its readers and their comments, forms a real “live” environment where people feel free to communicate.

aheadWorks is happy to announce that Blog has become compatible with Magento Enterprise 1.8 and now you can set up Blog – Enterprise Edition or Blog – Community Edition on your store.

Hot news! Today the new version of one of the most downloaded modules in Magento Connect – Blog Extension by aheadWorks – has been released. And what is more notable, the features YOU were asking for in our Forum have been implemented:

• Switchable categories ID in blog post URL
  If you consider categories ID unnecessary for blog post URL and they are not good for SEO, enable them and the problem is solved!
• Switchable menu categories
  Don’t want the blog categories to be displayed in menu? Just one click and the categories are enabled!

The following bugs have been fixed in this version:

• SQL error while retrieving posts for store on frontend fixed
• Post is accessible from inaccessible store fixed
• Hardcoded labels
• Sitemap containing posts from other stores was generated for store

You can find more information about this free aheadWorks extension on the Blog page.

Major updates:
+ added parsing CMS tags functionality. This function is experimental and can be switched off at backoffice
* fixed google sitemap
* skipped evil .13 release

Closed community requests/bug reports:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/47454/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/54069/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/49668/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/49191/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/52141/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/48217/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/48176/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/54028/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/52978/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/52978/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/51476/

Find more information on the extension page

Due to the lack of activity in this highly demanded extension development, aheadWorks has agreed with the owner and previous developer lazzymonk on moving the ownership rights to our company.

We are already well known in modules development sphere and decided to take our chance to make a valuable contribution to the community.

So we must answer the first question that could arise immediately – yes, the extension continues to be free and open source despite it changes its license and owner.

We’ll try to dedicate more efforts to the development to make this extension better and better and satisfy growing needs of the community.

Compatibility

Sure, we made the new version compatible with the previous one. It doesn’t delete any information, everything from your old blog will be integrated. To ensure proper migration please refer to the upgrade instructions and follow them thoroughly.

What’s in the new release?

• Last Magento version compatibility
• Switchable WYSIWYG
• Excerpt field
• Tags added
• Tags cloud block added
• If user is logged in comment fields are pre-filled
• Ability to show blog menu only on blog page
• Settings menu shortcut
• Add post menu shortcut
• .htm rewrite added to post link
• This is not a beta – the release is stable and for live stores use

Extension page: http://ecommerce.aheadworks.com/free-stuff/blog.html

P.S. In fact this is a pre-release. We will submit new version to magento connect next week.