Having a lively blog is not easy. Communicating with readers require some clever tricks. For example having polls or shout box could significantly help reader engage. Depends on the nature of your blog, there are many plugins to help you on this task.

Event Calendar

Display upcoming events in a dynamic calendar, on a listings page, or as a list in the sidebar. You can also use the upcoming events widget to display your events along with the calendar.

Different Posts Per Page

Sometimes we would like to display different number of posts on category, tag and home page. If your theme does not have this function, this plugin will definitely help you.

NextGEN Gallery

A full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a Flash slideshow option. I once gave up on this plugin for a project, cause the Flash slideshow does show on my site, but now the plugin incorporates AJAX based thumbnail generator,Watermark function and JavaScript Effect. How can I ignore these new features?

A couple of screen shots here so you get the taste.

Tweet Blender

A Widgetbox widget that blends Twitter tweets from multiple sources.

MiniPosts

Want to have some variety on your sidebar? display a list of excerpts of your posts is a good idea.

PollDaddy Polls

Help your reader engage in you survey. The PollDaddy Polls plugin allows you to create and manage polls from within your WordPress dashboard. You can create polls, choose from 20 different styles for your polls and view all results for your polls as they come in.

Get Recent Comments

Make reader’s opinion counts. This plugin shows excerpts of the latest comments and/or trackbacks in your sidebar. You have comprehensive control about their appearance.