There's a couple of companies I follow on a regular basis because they regularly innovate, either in WordPress theming, or in developing unique plugins that enhance the user experience for visitors to WordPress-based sites.

Unique Blog Designs started out as a wordpress theming company, and that's where Bigpacific.com went for the design of our first WordPress foray online. They built us a beautiful, custom design that reflected all the beauty of the Sunshine Coast and allowed for extra promotional spaces for advertisers wanting a greater prominence on the site.

Since then, UBD as they are widely referred to today have broadened their themes to serve the affiliate, email and online marketers niches. These are not niches where I generally spend a lot of time, but I did review and test the themes for customers who do wish to work them, and they are loaded with features and plugins that automate and leverage a lot of the elbow grease that goes into running a great blog or marketing site.

Now UBD has launched a new product, a very handy plugin for WordPress sites called 'Highlighter'. If you've ever used an old-fashioned highlighter (don't laugh, some younger people haven't!) you'll be familiar with the concept, now employed in a unique digital format that makes for a novel way to share content online with colleagues and friends.

With the highlighter plugin, the barriers are removed for user engagement.Visitors to your site can highlight a word, phrase, sentence - even an image - and instantly share it online, with a comment via Facebook, Twitter or Email. The Highlight Box packs all the related comments and sharing in one handy spot - and the webmaster can moderate highlights the same as comments.

You can also collect email addresses with the Highlighter tool integrated with Aweber, MailChimp or GetResponse.

This is a FREE tool that will increase visitor engagement, build your email network and create conversation points in novel ways.

Use Highlighter on this post and share it with friends!

WPREMIX - TAKING WORDPRESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL

This template system appears to have everything needed to fully customize a WordPress blog. It is especially attractive for designers - once you get past the rather steep $275 for an unlimited license use (you can't resell it as a system, but you can use it for any number of clients) it's clear there is a lot of mileage in the product down the road.

The features include:

• WYSIWYG page editor
• Over 50 templates, each of which can be further customized
• Flexibility - instead of having to use a plug-in like WidgetLogic to manage what sidebar content shows up on what posts or pages (and havingto know conditional tags as well to make that happen), it's all built into the system
• Smart drop menu - now this is something I've wanted with WordPress templates for a while, in an easy-to-manage system
• Dynamic codes - insert javascript or php modules using the code guide
• Add on modules - support for modules like shopping carts, image galleries, etc.

You can also get the license for $75/single use, which means you can use it on one web site. What I really appreciate about the WPRemix business model is that if you go for the one-site license and decide to upgrade, you just pay the difference, and they make this policy very clear on the Purchase page.

And if you purchase WPRemix right now, you get an additional Magazine template valued at $39, and a FREE BBPress Forum add on that is fully compatible with the WPRemix system.

Click here to visit WordPress Remix website!

Thanks to John Chow for introducing me to this interesting and exciting product.