Twitter “Share” Button Most Common Among Top Blogs

Many blogs depend on the practice of sharing for survival, or at least profitability; they can't count on millions of people to find their own way to every article.  And it turns out that, when it comes to "share" buttons, popular blogs depend more on Twitter's than any other option out there.

We're going to skip the causation/correlation debate (do popular blogs turn to Twitter because it's great, or is Twitter popular because great blogs promote it?) and move straight to the facts: Pingdom employees looked at which share buttons are used by the Technorati Top 100 blogs, and Twitter's button made 66 appearances.

That's rather impressive, considering that the second- and third-place options - Facebook and "general share" - tied, showing up only 58 times each.  Then there's even more of a drop-off as you move down to Digg, which made just 49 appearances.

Interestingly, six of the top blogs offered no sharing options whatsoever.  Also, although Pingdom didn't track email-related buttons, a blog post admitted, "Had we included them, they would have been among the top sharing options."

So there's some info about the current state of social media as it's being utilized by the Technorati Top 100.  Feel free to address the chicken-and-the-egg matter in the comments section.

VaultPress Announces New WordPress Backup Security Services

Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg has announced a new service, VaultPress that is designed to meet the growing need for automated backups and security patches for WordPress self-hosted sites.

Here’s how Mullenweg describes the service:

The vision of VaultPress is to ensure that blogs and sites under its care are always completely secure, regardless of what happens. Today, this means every bit of content will be safe, from plugins and themes to the smallest comment or post revision, with WordPress-aware, real-time, multi-cloud backups. This is some of the most advanced technology I’ve seen interact with WordPress.

In the future, if your site is tampered with in any way, we’ll know within minutes and can take appropriate steps. The VaultPress core engine will be able to protect you against zero-day security vulnerabilities by updating your blog with hot-fixes, even while you sleep.

VaultPress fills a huge hole for WordPress self-hosted sites. It remains to be seen how automated updates play with critical plugins. If VaultPress can deal with this issue in an elegant way, it could be hugely beneficial for bloggers and podcasters.

VaultPress is in beta now – see the beta application for details. VaultPress plans to charge around $10/month for the service.

iPad Gets 3500 Times As Many Preorders As The Crunchpad / Joojoo

Remember the Joojoo?

The Crunchpad?

That much-hyped $500 tablet computer that’s not the Apple iPad?

No?

Despite generating a lot of buzz with tech bloggers, Joojoo creators Fusion Garage appears to have had difficulty translating that into orders.

Gizmodo reports that there were 90 pre-orders for the JooJoo, and 15 of those were returned. Preorders for the iPad are estimated at 250,000-300,000 units, about 3,500 times as many.

Go To College, Get An iPad

Seton Hill University, a Catholic liberal-arts university based in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, has announced plans to give an Apple iPad to every full-time student in fall 2010.

According to the school:

The iPad initiative kicks off the University’s Griffin Technology Advantage Program. This new program provides students with the best in technology and collaborative learning tools, ensuring that Seton Hill students will be uniquely suited to whatever careers they choose – even those that have not yet been created.

This announcement comes so early – before the iPad is established and before we know what books will be available on the device – that this seems more like an iGimmick to generate buzz for the school than the start of a new trend.

With the release of the iPad, though, it suddenly seems insane for students to be spending $400 a semester on textbooks.

Get Sound Effects

Spice up your podcast with sound effects!

Are iBooks The New Podcasts?

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Apple iPad will be available starting this Saturday – and it looks like the company has another hit product. Pre-orders are in the hundreds of thousands and iPad suppliers are forecasting 8 million to 10 million iPad shipments in 2010.

That’s a lot of iPads – and a lot of people that will now be reading eBooks. While the Kindle has been relatively successful niche product, the iPad is a mainstream multi-function device – and it is expected to ship with 30,000 free ebooks available.

With numbers like these, it’s clear that a new platform for publishing is here.

Are iBooks The New Podcasts?

Apple’s iBook sneak preview isn’t nearly as sexy as the “motion magazine” Viv Mag or Penguin’s forward-thinking concepts for ebooks.

Apple’s eBook / iBook examples, though, look like they could be published by mortals. They look like something podcasters and bloggers could whip up over a couple of weekends.

And, out of the hundreds of thousands of podcasters and millions of bloggers, there are going to be a lot of people interested in publishing ebooks for those 8-10 million people buying iPads in 2010.

eBooks are going to be the new podcasts – not replacing podcasts, but becoming the latest user publishing platform. Just as the iPod provided a mass audience platform for podcasts, the iPad will create a mass audience platform for eBooks.

We’re still looking for the Pagemaker of iBooks – a cheap or free eBook/iBook publishing tool that’s as user-friendly as the typical iPhone app.

It’s coming, though, and once it hits, book publishing will never be the same.

Podcasts are Podern

Podcasts are modern tools for education - atleast according to AskTheProf

Game Audio In The Cloud – Generated in the Cloud and streamed to your mobile headset

In 2002, at the International CES trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada, Mark "the Red" Harlan, then Chief Evangelist for a scrappy little start-up called Danger, Incorporated, demonstrated an early version of a wireless internet device called the "hiptop" (later known as the T-Mobile Sidekick). He explained that it was a prototype, costing many thousands of dollars to produce, then he navigated to the Notes application, typed in a message, hit enter, and waited a moment while the Note synced to the Danger servers via wireless connection. Then he put the device on the floor, and dropped a bowling ball on it!

BOSS Intros BR-800 Portable Digital Audio Recorder

At Musikmesse 2010, a major audio and music industry convention held annually in Frankfurt, BOSS announced the BR-800, a compact portable audio workstation.

The BR-800 audio recorder can record four tracks at once to SD-card media. It has inputs for four microphones, built-in audio effects and can double as a USB audio interface and DAW control surface.

The BOSS BR-800 is scheduled for release in May with an MSRP of $525.

Boss BR-800 features

• 4-track simultaneous recording, 8-track simultaneous playback plus dedicated stereo rhythm track playback.
• EZ Recording interactively guides through the recording process.
• Powerful guitar, bass, and vocal effects derived from BOSS’s flagship processors.
• Song Sketch recording for quick stereo capture in WAV format.
• Built-in advanced drum machine with editor software.
• Functions as a USB audio interface and DAW control surface.
• Cakewalk SONAR 8.5 LE software with full audio loops and backing tracks included.
• Built-in stereo condenser microphone for instant recording.
• Sleek new interface based on touch sensors.
• 1GB SD included (supports up to 32GB SDHC card).
• Runs on six AA batteries/USB bus power/AC adaptor (included).

BOSS Intros BR-800 Portable Digital Audio Recorder

At Musikmesse 2010, a major audio and music industry convention held annually in Frankfurt, BOSS announced the BR-800, a compact portable audio workstation.

The BR-800 audio recorder can record four tracks at once to SD-card media. It has inputs for four microphones, built-in audio effects and can double as a USB audio interface and DAW control surface.

The BOSS BR-800 is scheduled for release in May with an MSRP of $525.

Boss BR-800 features

• 4-track simultaneous recording, 8-track simultaneous playback plus dedicated stereo rhythm track playback.
• EZ Recording interactively guides through the recording process.
• Powerful guitar, bass, and vocal effects derived from BOSS’s flagship processors.
• Song Sketch recording for quick stereo capture in WAV format.
• Built-in advanced drum machine with editor software.
• Functions as a USB audio interface and DAW control surface.
• Cakewalk SONAR 8.5 LE software with full audio loops and backing tracks included.
• Built-in stereo condenser microphone for instant recording.
• Sleek new interface based on touch sensors.
• 1GB SD included (supports up to 32GB SDHC card).
• Runs on six AA batteries/USB bus power/AC adaptor (included).

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