WordPress MU

I gearing up to run multiple blogs and two features stood out that I'm wondering if Wordpress has:

(1) The ability to POST-date entries so they will appear when scheduled
(2) The ability to run one of the blogs as a linkblog
(3) The ability to easily embed a linkblog as content on a regular blog (sidebar)

I also want to know if I will be able to post using one administrative login, but have myself appear as a unique profile (username) on each blog.

None of these are deal-killers, and I'd rather use WP than migrate to another solution, but I want to weigh all considerations. Anyone's answers are greatly appreciated!

(1) Yes. Post dates are editable and will only appear when scheduled.
(2) Any blog can collect it's own links/bookmarks.
(3) Embedding a list of links collected on one blog to display on another? you'll need a bit of code in the sidebar or widget such as the following...

<?php switch_to_blog($blog_id);
     wp_list_bookmarks($args);
     restore_current_blog(); ?>

In WPMU you can have all the usernames you like, one per email. While editing as a Admin(or SiteAdmin) role you can change the author of any post to any author also assigned to that blog.

Thanks!

(2) Clarification: I don't mean a blogroll or list of links. I mean one blog (the main content of a linkblog) is embedded in the sidebar of another, so the content changes in the latter whenever I post a new one in the former.

So ... is there a different set of post settings for a link blog, or is it run just like a regular blog?

Add an RSS feed widget from the main blog to the other blogs sidebar.

Okay, I've had no luck installing it on my server, but I wont get into that.

Ii decided to back off and do some more basic research on WPMU and now have a few very basic questions that don't seem covered anywhere, but should be.

I want to run -- and post to -- multiple blogs from one place.

I don't mean create a community of other bloggers, and I don't mean a bunch of sub-domains on the same domain. I also don't want WPMU installed in the web root of any of my domains.

(A) Can I (or can I not) install it in a sub-directory on my main site to manage multiple blogs on various domains?

(B) Does WordPressMU allow me to post the same entry simultaneously on whichever blogs I choose, and can they have myself as author under different nicknames/aliases?

Or is WPMU just for creating and managing the administrative end of multiple blogs? I wish I could see it in action ...

a. Yes.

b. no.

See it in action? Go sign up at wordpress.com. Close enough.

I already use WordPress. I want to see the multi-blog management in action.

So I can't post to multiple blogs through one interface? What's the point?

What do you mean what's the point?

Most people who want to run WPMU want to have lots of different blogs, not lots of blogs with the same content.

"So I can't post to multiple blogs through one interface?"

then get BlogDesk.

The point of WPMU is blog hosting. Each blog is effectively independent, just sharing the wordpress engine core. Host 1 or 1000 blogs, and just upgrade the core once and all are upgraded.

Site-Admin can get to all the blogs, but editing/managing content in each blog is basically at the individual blog level. What is handled globally is themes are shared, plugins are shared, user database is even shared.

To post the same article to multiple blogs would require either a plugin to change the default wordpress behavior or using a third party blog posting tool like BlogDesk as has been mentioned several times.

I will say though that posting the same content to multiple blogs is a stupid idea simply because Google looks for that kind of thing and identifies it as bad behavior (common among splogs, content harvesters, etc) and drops your pagerank accordingly.

"Most people who want to run WPMU want to have lots of different blogs, not lots of blogs with the same content."

Then for one user who has to log in separately to update each blog, that is silly. Remember, I'm not running a blog community for other users.

"The point of WPMU is blog hosting. "

Thanks. That is what I didn't understand off the bat, and now it makes sense. Too bad that's not what I'm doing.

"I will say though that posting the same content to multiple blogs is a stupid idea simply because Google looks for that kind of thing and identifies it as bad behavior "

Yes, it's stupid in that one sense, but that's not what I'm trying to do. Each blog will have a different target audience, and only a few posts here and there will be on more than one -- and rarely (if ever)more than three blogs. So is it stupid when the same article is published in multiple news sources? Nope. I'm not replicating content wholesale, and I doubt if Google will mark it negatively. I could be wrong.

But at this point it looks like WPMU may not be the choice for my needs, which sucks because WP rocks for so many reasons. I'll have to look into BlogDesk ... is it a plug-in or a whole other system? {cursor reaches for Google bar}

Okay ... I think using BlogDesk WITH WPMU, I may have found the best solution.

Thanks everyone, especially Andrea!