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Prompting ChatGPT With Blog Content

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I recently worked on a presentation about the design of my website, formatted as a talk. When creating this talk, I realized that it was a culmination of several blog posts and other things I've been talking about on my site. Therefore, I had already said a lot about this topic online, in a format that ChatGPT could easily read.

Because of this, it was kind-of the perfect scenario to use ChatGPT to help me create the slides for my presentation. Not only could the program use the information from these articles, but it could also pay attention to my general style of writing, and use it to help inform itself how to write my content.

It was really helpful. I didn't end up using most of the content it gave me verbatim, and honestly it didn't make the process go any faster, but I do genuinely feel like it was a great sounding board; almost like a person I could quickly bounce ideas off of to help me assemble a better presentation.

What I didn't expect, was that after that chat was done, I've now fed ChatGPT as much information as I can about my blog. It now has the full context of my approach to the project, the tools I used, the issues I faced, and the problems I faced that led me to this scenario.

This specific thread, which began as a tool to help me create my presentation, now has a version of ChatGPT that is optimized and ready to help me write up all kinds of things for my platform. I've already used it to help me draft a classified for my video content needs quickly.

Unintentionally, it's like I trained the AI on a microcosm of my own content, and now I have my own assistant who can help me with all kinds of things. I wonder how else I could use this thread to help me progress this project further?

Out of curiosity, I prompted this thread with this question:

Using all of the information you have about my website design, give me a few suggestions on how I can overcome the obstacles I've discussed in the past.

It responded with this well thought out response. Some of the ideas aren't accurate, but some are actually pretty good:

Certainly! Based on the comprehensive information you've provided about your website, here are some suggestions to overcome the challenges you've mentioned:

Video Hosting

  1. External Video Hosting Services: Services like Vimeo Pro or Wistia offer robust video hosting solutions that can be easily integrated with WordPress. They often provide plugins that you can install, allowing you to upload videos directly to their service via the WordPress dashboard.
  2. Cloud Storage Solutions: Consider using a cloud storage solution like Amazon S3. You can upload your videos there and then embed them in your WordPress posts. There are also plugins that enable direct uploads to S3 from the WordPress dashboard.
  3. WordPress Video Plugins: Some video plugins allow for more advanced video management within WordPress, including cloud uploads and better compression algorithms. Examples include WP Offload Media and FV Player.

Automated Crossposting to Social Media

  1. IFTTT for Advanced Crossposting: IFTTT (If This Then That) could allow more control over your crossposting, especially to platforms that don't offer straightforward APIs for this sort of thing, like personal Facebook accounts.
  2. Mastodon WordPress Plugin: Since you've moved to Mastodon and the fediverse, consider using a WordPress-to-Mastodon plugin to streamline that part of your social media engagement.
  3. Social Media Platforms' Own APIs: If you're technically inclined, you could write a small function to post directly to Twitter or other platforms using their APIs. This might be a more tailor-made solution.

User Experience for Different Post Types

  1. Custom Post Templates: Since your WordPress theme already categorizes posts smartly, you could also create custom post templates for different types of content, making each type visually distinct and more engaging.
  2. JavaScript Tweaks for UX: Since you have that cool clock easter egg, you're no stranger to front-end code. You could use JS to add real-time features, like a live view count or instant social sharing options.

Streamlining the Posting Process

  1. Pre-Filled Metadata: To make your WordPress experience as quick and smooth as Twitter, consider using a plugin or custom function that automatically fills in certain post metadata based on rules you set. For example, if a post has the word "WordPress", the WordPress tag could be automatically added.
  2. Character Count Plugin: To avoid social media cross-posting failures due to character limits, you could add a real-time character count display while composing micro-posts.
  3. Custom Backend Dashboard: Since you're well-versed with WordPress, creating a custom dashboard widget that allows you to post quickly to different post types and add tags could streamline your process.

By implementing some of these solutions, you can overcome the existing challenges and make your WordPress site an even more powerful platform for your content creation and sharing needs.

I know this is a hot-button topic, and I don't even necessarily think AI is good everywhere, but it's really difficult for me to not see value in things such as this. I feel like we're just at the tip of the iceberg with this technology, and this process of "feed", "ask", "revise" seems to be quite effective for generating new ideas.