Big tech blogs like Mashable and TechCrunch have already added Google Buzz buttons to their articles for people to share their content. If you also want to have such feature on your blog download Google Buzz plugin here. With just a few click you will be able to setup the button and place in custom location on your blog.

Download The Plugin

Plugin is the easiest way to add Buzz button, but if you want to customize it more and build your own here is explained how to add button manually.

And if you like this article Buzz it!

In new year, everything starts afresh and so do bloggers. Aside from resolutions and blogging plans, it’s time to evaluate our blogging progress from previous year. Some of you may not be a fan in tracking stats but in order to plan well ahead, at least a simple review is needed. I don’t plan to bombard you with multiple tools, but some easy, accessible ways you can do for your blog evaluation:

1. Number & Quality of Comments

Most of the time, we are advised to track which post received the most comments as an indicator of its popularity. Truth is, quality factor is equally important as to get 50 times of ‘good post!’ is unable to compete with 40 comments with insightful, continuous discussions. Of course, time factor can affect since newer posts may need longer times to accumulate comments comparing to older ones.

2. Number of Retweets

You don’t need me to explain to you how ‘big’ Twitter is nowadays. If you’re going full force with social media as an publicity tool for your blog, you need to install tweetcount widgets like Tweetmeme (http://tweetmeme.com) or Backtype (http://www.backtype.com/widgets/tweetcount). Their reliabilities are unquestionable. Further more a visible widget earns you 50:50 chance for readers to retweet. Blog author has nothing to lose but a higher chance to get discovered. Therefore make sure you have the ‘WIIFM’ (What’s In It For Me) factor for all your posts, make them irresistible to go viral in various social networks.

3. Social Boorkmaking Submissions and Votes

StumbleUpon (http://stumbleupon.com) and Blogengage (http://www.blogengage.com) are examples of social bookmarking sites that allow people to submit, vote and review on the posts they like. Keep an eye on the voting amount and Analytical details that indicate which bookmarking site sent you the most visitors. This helps in prioritize your focus in certain communities and bookmarking sites that worked for you.

4. Google Analytics

Probably the best, free analytical tool I’ve ever witnessed. You can have all the analytical statistics required to measure blog progress. With Google Analytics you can find out which are your popular posts and traffic source. Knowing which keywords drive in the most visits from search engine is vital. Also, you can even identify and prepare for a follow-up post according to your most visited content.

5. Google Feedburner

Keep a periodic record of your RSS feed subscribers. For example, create an excel file, jot down the feed count in accordance to your published posts. You may think this is troublesome at first but these information and numbers can very well portray how do people react to your blog.

6. Others:

• Other Blogs’ Responses

This including the backlinks received from other blogs. Try to identify whether the links are reciprocal or one-way link? Are the bloggers link to you because of your post quality? Who are they and how did they find your post?

• Alexa and Google Page Rank

Two options you can take into account while measuring your blog success in general. Although it may not be the precise way to authenticate the quality of your blog but bear in mind that some advertisers do take them as references. Be ahead of your targeted group and improve these rankings can be helpful.

• Income & Profit Stats

If your goal is to blog for money, obviously Google Adsense and affiliate programs are what matter most to you. Evaluate your monthly income and identify what you could do to enhance your email marketing and be persuasive in your promotions.

Some of the ways mentioned may not be suitable for everyone, but in general they can give you some ideas how others are responding to your blog. Your blogging goals will affect much how you interpret those data. So what methods do you use to measure your blog success?

This post is written by Niall Harbison

For people who are just starting out in the world of blogging one of the most frustrating things that crop up is the lack of blog comments that you receive. This even happens to more established blogs who suffer from a lot of lurkers (people who read the blog without ever announcing themselves) rather than people leaving comments. If you are lucky enough to get comments they can be the lifeblood of your blog and a great source of additional content and go on to be a whole new element to the blog on their own.

So what can you do to get more comments on your blog? I wanted to share some tips that have been very effective for me during the course of building all the blogs that I am involved with…

Reply to comments

This might seem pretty obvious at the start when you are only getting a couple of comments here and there but you should always take time to try and interact with people who have taken the time to share their thoughts on your post. People will begin to expect your replies and leave more comments in return and a real sense of community will develop on your blog.

Pose lots of questions

Although you may think that your opinion is the only one that counts there will be lots of topics that you cover that you don’t know every last thing about so it is good to ask your readers for feedback in the comments. Another good tip is to always finish a post with a question as that will provoke the natural instinct of the reader to answer your question immediately.

Write controversial content

You don’t need to go totally crazy on this one but do write content that polarizes people and makes them think about what they are reading and stirs the passion inside them to comment. Don’t forget that people don’t always have to agree with you and say “great post”, some of the most commented posts I have had are when people totally disagree with what you say.

Comment on other blogs

You’ll often hear people tell you to comment on blogs in order to grow traffic or increase the amount of subscribers you have but the real value here in my opinion is the amount of comments that you get in return. Rather than just fire hosing comments all over the place stick to a good batch of about 20 blogs and start building relationships with some of your fellow bloggers through the comments. Bloggers are after all the sort of people who like to have their voice heard and write so they are the most likely to comment.

Build a community

You have so many tools available to you these days to help you build your community from Twitter to Facebook and forums and you should be using these to leverage the amount of people coming to visit your blog. The key is saying interesting things on these other platforms so as you build a community and people feel compelled to come to your blog and comment.

Guest post:

Written by Niall Harbison

Niall runs social media agency Simply Zesty.

I was shocked this morning when I read in the LA Times that Disneyland, Disney World and the Disney Cruise Line were rolling out an official blog. For a company that seemingly has its meat hooks in every aspect of entertainment, it’s amazing that it took this long to join the blogosphere. Better late than never!

The new blog will focus on rides and attractions, exclusive videos and photographs. You can also expect detailed coverage on calendar events taking place within the United States.

According to the blog, “Expect to hear from a variety of Disney Cast Members who work each day to make that ‘Disney Difference’.”

Comments are moderated and the site is headed by chief blogger and social media director Thomas Smith. The goal is to have a centralized and “official” repository for everything Disney.

Whether you love or hate America’s most popular mouse, an open forum of everything Disney has the potential to generate some interesting dialogue, along with a boatload of traffic.

That leads us to the question of the day…

Are there any major companies that you can identify who have not yet embraced social media?

Odds are if they haven’t yet, they will soon!

Mobile Tumblr Apps

Tumble is the iPhone tumblr app that has all the functionality of the web application minus video posting. The iPhone app boasts no zooming and clicking since they’ve streamlined the browser for the iPhone.

Tumble Phone lets you enter a tumblr username to view it as optimized for the iPhone. This will allow you to browse other tumblr blogs without the slow load time of the traditional web based url.

BlackBerry tumblr completes the list of mobile apps (and no list would be complete without mentioning the crackberry). Like the iPhone app, this is a clean, blackberry-ready version of the site with the same capabilities of the web version. Use this to tumble from anywhere!

Atumble is the Google Android phone application that lets you post to your tumblr account without logging in to tumblr from the web browser. Like Tumble, it is equipped to post text, photos, quotes, links and conversations but not video. But we can dream, right?

Tubmla works on any cell phone that allows java script, so if your phone is a brick or made to fold in half and features pixelated font, you may still have a chance to tumble around town!

Jott is traditionally used for transcribing voice to text for voicemail or self reminders, but you can also use Jott with tumblr by simply calling Jott from your phone and the transcript of your note, quote or witty insight will magically appear on your tumblr blog.

Tumblr Web Apps

Tumblelog is a Facebook application that puts your tumblr blog in a tab on your personal Facebook profile. Tumblelog also automatically broadcasts your blog posts in your News Feed so friends can see it without even going to your profile.

Tumbltape turns your tumblr blog into a playlist and is created by the latest songs on your tumblr blog. As new songs are uploaded,tumbltape automatically updates your tumbletape playlist, making your tumblr experience more interactive.

Hellotxt is a productivity tool that lets you save time by updating all of your social networks from the web, email or third party applications all at once, including your tubmlr.

Psolenoid supports the tumblr blog platform to connect your posts to related content of other bloggers’ articles.

Site and Browser Tumblr Tools

Tumblr Post is a wicked Firefox add on that lets you post photos, videos, quotes and audio with a simple drag and drop to your statusbar icon. Rather than copying and saving content to your desktop then uploading to tumblr, streamline your tumblr posting with a simple click.

Tumblr MP3 Player allows you to create a playlist and share your music on your tumblr blog. This is a java script with a simple copy and paste html code with step by step instructions.

Tumblr Tag Clouds is a simple copy and paste line of html that gives your blog a tag cloud which is generated dynamically so it is live. As you use tags more frequently, they become larger than the less used tags, giving new viewers an idea of what your content focuses on.

There are many more tumblr apps to use on your phone or on the web, which ones would you add to the list?

ZenHabits

In Their Words: Zen Habits is one of the Top 100 blogs on the Internet, and covers: achieving goals, productivity, being organized, GTD, motivation, eliminating debt, saving, getting a flat stomach, eating healthy, simplifying, living frugal, parenting, happiness, and successfully implementing good habits.

The site was created by self-proclaimed “regular guy” Leo Babauta. Learn how to wake up early, ways to simplify your life, and unique cost-cutting methods. The blog specializes in positive motivation and dietary info.

So if you want to make your life better by maximizing productivity and living a healthy lifestyle, ZenHabits is for you.

Stepcase LifeHack

In Their words: This site dedicated to lifehacks. The phrase describes any hacks, tips and tricks that get things done quickly by automating, increase productivity and organizing. This site is built around this theme.

Many topics here revolve around technology-based issues. For example, “How to Get More Out of Your Home Network” or “12 Free Android Apps to Help Get Things Done” are currently popular posts. LifeHack live, an audio podcast, supplements the written content.

LifeHacker

In Their words: Lifehacker, the software and productivity guide, is a blog that covers tips and tricks for streamlining your life with computers (and sometimes without). Updated several times daily, Lifehacker points out software downloads, web sites, do-it-yourself projects, how-to’s, tutorials, shortcuts and tips for going beyond the default settings and getting things done in the most clever, unexpected and efficient ways. Think of Lifehacker as self-help for power users.

Part of the Gawker Media empire, categories include downloads, money, spam, etc. A nice filter let’s you only display posts related to the O/S of your choice.

43Folders

In Their words: “Productivity” isn’t about making more widgets per hour or being efficient and organized for its own anal-retentive sake. Real productivity means getting faster at moving the crap off your desk so you can have room to focus on the creative work that only you can do. Figure out how to do that every morning, and you’ll be ready to go pro.

Designed to help you find the time and attention to do your best creative work, 43Folders wants you to stop by and move on. Site creator Merlin Mann does not want you to use his online venue as an excuse to procrastinate. The site is no longer updated as frequently as it once was, but there all some great archived posts here (dating as far back as 2004), including the ever-useful, Perfect” iTunes equalizer setting.

WiseBread

In Their Words: Wise Bread is a community of bloggers here to help you live large on a small budget. Despite what you may have heard, you don’t have to sacrifice your financial independence to enjoy life.

If you are looking to save money and get the most out of your dollar, without sacrificing quality, Wisebread is the site for you. Hustle free drinks, eliminate car dents or learn how to milk that 12V battery for all its worth, this well-written site will keep you entertained and hopefully save you money.

DumbLittleMan

In Their Words: Like many of you, I have a real world job that has its positives and negatives. I also have the typical pains that you’d associate with middle-class America: raising a family, increasing housing and fuel costs, stress at work, bad bosses, etc. – you name it.

When Dumb Little Man was born, I would personally write about these experiences and their solutions.

The site started out as nod to frugality, but has evolved into a blog that covers everyday life topics. You can read about Things to Consider Before Getting Married and then click over to How to Plan a Kick-Butt Road Trip. The site is engaging and now even excepts guest posts. Founder Jay White’s believe is that the best advice doesn’t have to come from “experts” – and we could not agree more.

What blog do you read to improve YOUR life?

Honorable Mentions:

Life Hackery – How to Stand Someone Up on a Date

Hack a Day – Home Automation Via Twitter

http://hackaday.com/2009/07/19/home-automation-via-twitter/

If you know more amazing templates for Blogspot share them in comments!

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With so many fly-by-night operations, here are 7 of my favorite blogs about blogging that have had serious staying power.

Problogger

Australian blogger Darren Rowse has undoubtedly been responsible for the success of hundreds – if not thousands of bloggers. While the exact number might be difficult to quantify, you’d be hard pressed to find a blogger who at one time or another, did not visit Problogger to make sure they were not committing a blogging faux pas. A great job board, which is updated frequently, rounds out the experience.

Copyblogger

The success of blogs are based on several different variables, but at the end of the day, well-written and compelling content will be the main ingredient. To that end, Copyblogger, started by copywriter Brian Clark in early 2006, can lend a hand. Whether you are looking to create a strong blog post in under 20 minutes or simply want to check the pulse of blogosphere, Copyblogger is your online home for copywriting tips for online marketing success.

BlogHerald

BH is your source for news that pertains to blogging. Whether it’s a story about an unjust blogger jailing in Iran or a review of the latest Web-based blogging tool, the site is updated several times a day and does a great job of keeping busy blogger informed on what’s happening around them on a global scale.

Disclosure: Your humble blogger writes for BlogHerald several times a week.

JohnChow.com

There might not be an Internet celebrity that can polarize people the way John Chow can. If you’re looking to turn a profit with your blog, and are willing to resort to almost any tactic to make some money, Johnchow.com is for you. Love him or hate him, the man makes over $40,000 a month from his blog. The man is shameless. So get ready for pop-ups, peelaways and every other ad trick in the book. If you can navigate through the noise, there are actually some great tips hidden amongst the “evil.”

DailyBlogTips

Covering blogging basics, link tips and domain name information, DailyBlogTips is one of those sites that you’ll want to visit on a daily basis. The strongest feature might be Bloggers Face Off” a double interview with two “successful” bloggers. This is the spot where you can glean information from some of the Web’s brightest stars; and who better to learn from than folks who have already ‘made it’ as bloggers.

AndyBeard.eu

Based in Poland, and unafraid to say it like it is, Andy Beard puts out a great blog that can help you optimize and market your blog for the masses. Read about tips, memes, Wordpress and link building. All posts are thought out and well-written. Expect to enjoy the read and learn something along the way.

BloggingPro

News, plugins and themes for blogging applications

You’ll find useful reviews of blogging products along with a ton of information on the Wordpress blogging platform.

YOUR TURN: Which blogs about blogging do you enjoy? Please share your picks in the comments section below.

Meet Zinepal, the site where you become the editor, printing a morning edition of your favorite Web content old-school style, on paper.

To get started, you need only input a blog URL or an RSS feed URL. The system will pull five stories from that Website and format it in a “newspaper-style” look. You then have the option to add more stories.

After you have chosen your content sources, you tell Zinepal how many new stories you want to receive and when. For example, if you want 10 new stores every day, no problem. Only want 5 news stores every Tuesday? The delivery system can do that too!

Read your Zinepal by logging into their Website or have it sent directly to your e-mail address. Files arrive as PDFs.

This ain’t your mama’s paper! Zines can be made public or kept private. If you want yours to be found, you select keywords and create an introduction. A logo can be added up top – there are even spots for advertisers should you be lucky enough to sell any. If you like your creation, you can save the template to use again down the road.

You may preview your Zine without registering, however if you opt for delivery, signing up is a must.

Here to help bloggers and Website owners out is Plagium, a simple free tool allows you paste any text and see if it’s been lifted from somewhere else on the Web. Editors rejoice!

Until now, I’ve always plugged a specific sentence into Google, slapped quotation marks around the phrase, and held my breath. What makes Plagium better is that it operates on a proprietary engine “which employs advanced search technology for deep mining of documents on the public World Wide Web or within private repositories.” This means you can better search large blocks of text more accurately. The engine works quickly, but it does take a bit longer than a standard search engine.

If only people realized that stealing words is just as bad – if not worse – than stealing physical property, maybe they would think before the Crtl-C’d. In essence, you’re taking a job out of a fellow human being’s hands, and that is NOT good karma. Just because the WWW has put the information in front of us does not mean you can take it as your own.

The site accepts donations to help with upkeep and improvement costs.

Nice-looking graphs displaying where your text can be found and when it was added to other sites is provided by amCharts.

Steal this post at your own risk!

With bloggers often walking that fine gray line of attribution, we present for your approval, sni.ps, a bookmarklet that allows you to capture content, use it on your blog and give credit to the original source.

Here’s an example using an image that appears on the CNN.com homepage.

CNN.com

www.cnn.com

The image or text then becomes shaded to let you know you have “snipped” it correctly.

Here’s an in-depth look at the process:

1. Install

Simply drag this Snip it! button up to your bookmarks toolbar. It’s that easy. Now you’re ready to start snipping – you just have to find some content.

2. Capture

Each time you find content you want to capture for re-use, click on the sni.ps toolbar icon to open the capture zone. You’ll see the sni.ps Capture Zone mast head at the top of the page. Now just highlight the content you want – text, an image, video or a flash object – and click the snip button. A handy sni.ps highlight frame will appear once you have successfully snipped the content.

You can capture more content from this page, or continue browsing to find more.

We will store content for this session in a temporary session folder. But if you want to keep your sni.ps for re-use later on, you should sign up and create a personal folder. We’ll keep all your sni.ps handy for whenever you need them.

3. Annotate

You can title, tag and make notes to each sni.ps by clicking on the (i) icon. This is a great way to organize your sni.ps.

4. Embed

You can embed the content right away by clicking on the embed tab as soon as you capture it. Just copy and past the code.

If you signed up and decided to save content for later, you can keep browsing. You’re your ready to re-use the content, you can access your sni.ps folder anytime by logging in.

Simply select the content you want to embed to highlight it. You’ll see the content and its more detailed information over on the right. Click the embed button, and then copy the code for re-use. The content will be automatically attributed to its original source.

Twitority – authority based Twitter search that lets you find out is the most authoritative Twitter member based on specific keywords.

Tweetree - puts your Twitter stream in a tree so you can see the posts people are replying to in context.

JustTweetIt – Lets you find other Tweeters that share your interests, search for friends, and keep up with up with the latest Twitter tools.

Twitemperature – tells you whether you’re hot or cold on Twitter based on your Tweets and not based on the number of your followers

Twtpoll - create  a simple poll by entering your Twitter name, type of question, your question in 140 characters or less, and answer choices.

Twopolar – gives you the hottest and latest trends on Twitter for the last 2 and 8 hours, for the  day, for the week, for the month, and ever since Twitter was released.

DestroyToday – a new Twitter client built on Adobe AIR platform.

Twitterbuttons – Twitter button generator; lets you embed the buttons to your blogs, sites, and social networking profiles.

Twalala – a new Twitter client that lets you control what you and what you don’t see on your Twitter stream.

TwitchBoard – serves as your Twitter switchboard for sending your Tweets to other social networking sites and media. Currently works with Delicious only.

Tweetvisor – an alternative  Twitter interface that also lets you reply to Tweets.

Retweetrank – shows your ranking in terms of retweets from other Twitter users of your Tweets.

Twitrak - lets you select a Twitter member and Trak their basic profile AND their friends and followers on the same page.

MyCleenr – lets you sort your friends by their last tweets and allows you to get rid off all the inactive and useless accounts that you are following.

TwtCard – create and send a greeting card using Twitter.

BubbleTweet – lets you add videos to your Twitter page.

TwitterRibbons – allows you to generate follow me on Twitter ads shaped like a ribbon.

TwitOrNot – lets you rate your Twitter friends tweets whether hot or not, boring or exciting.

Twitterfall – real-time display of the latest Tweets literally falling from the top of the screen going down.

Tweepler – gives you two ways of organizing your Twitter followers – those you want to follow and those whom you want to ignore.

Twtwlst – create your wish list 140 character or less on Twitter.

TweetEffect – lets you analyze why followers unfollow you through your most latest tweets.

Tweetube – share YouTube videos to your Twitter followers easily and quickly.

Tweet Replies – receive Twitter replies on your email, RSS or browser

Twwttrip – organize your travel itenerary via Tweets.

Twippr –  short for “Twitter Payment Procedure”. It’s like PayPal the Twitter way.

Twiturm – store, stream and post  your music the Twitter stream.

Tweet3 – lets you manage multiple Twitter account in one interface.

TwTask – a sort of  To-do list tool you post on your Twitter updates and manage on the TwTask site.

TwitterSheep –  generates a word cloud of your Tweets.

NearbyTweets – lets you find other Tweeterers in your vicinity.

TweetBackup – should the worst thing happen to your account, this app lets you restore it if you use it before your account gets deleted.

CheapTweet – Find the best deals, coupons and sales that people are tweeting about.

21Tweets – Tweet bad habits that you want to get rid of and the service will monitor your progress by reminding you via Tweets.

Twisten.FM – FM radio of sorts for Twitter users; it scans Twitter for music tweets.

Tweetj - lets you find music that other Twitter users are Tweeting about.

Tweetabix – compilation of interviews of Twitter users.

TweetBoxLive – receive Tweets via SMS to your mobile phone.

Twitter2FF – sync your Twitter and Friendfeed updates/streams.

TwittExperts – discover and follow  varies experts on different fields on Twitter.

Who Follows Whom – Find out who follows up to 5 Twitter users, as well as who these five users follow.

Twittez - Ask the Twitter universe with the question “Does anyone knows…” and this app will try to find out the answers coming from Twitter users.

Twesent – send Twitter virtual presents to your friends.

VacaTweet – set an automatic reply to your Twitter friends when you are out on vacation and could not access Twitter.

If we miss anything, and I know we missed a lot, feel free to leave a comment.

comScore has been closely watching Twitter’s traffic for the past several months. And based on their observation, Twitter’s traffic was short of exploding. It was 10 million in February which was a 700+% increase the same time in 2008.

And data from the past two months showed that Twitter got 5 million more visitors. In the U.S. the number Twitter visitors grew by 4 million in February.

Undoubtedly, Twitter is the hottest web 2.0 service next to Facebook perhaps.  But what is interesting about this news is the demographic analysis of Twitter users. According to the analysis of a Reuter’s reporter, majority of the Twitter users belong to the 25-54 age bracket. In addition, 36% of these users belong to the older 45-54 age bracket.

This could mean several things. One is the fact that Twitter is being used for a more mature purposes rather than for communicating senseless thoughts and ideas? Twitter is establishing itself as a faster way of communicating for business transactions, for sharing decisions and all?

Or could it be that the younger users prefer to use Facebook to communicate with their peers because it offers more fun stuff to do rather than posting 140 characters updates.

Whatever the reason is for Twitter’s traffic growth, the fact remains that it is becoming a force to reckon with in the web 2.0/social networking arena. And if a major internet player is eyeing to acquire Twitter, it must make an irresistable offer to succeed. Anyway, with site traffic as big as it has right now, there tremendous possibilities by which Twitter can be used to generate profit.

TodaysMama Connect runs as a subdomain of the TodaysMama’s site.  And so design-wise it inherits the look and feel of the “mother site”. Like Twitter, TodaysMama Connect uses the “@” for sending comments to other members, and the “#” for posting topics.

But in addition to this functionality, TodaysMama Connect allows members to create “groups” according to regional areas or topical subsets.  Members can send messages to a group by specifying the group name preceeded by an exclamation point before sending a “Connect” message.

TodaysMama’s Connect timeline can also be browsed through by groups, recent tags, featured and popular messages. Likewise a list of popular posts are also displayed on the site’s right sidebar. This is updated in real-time so you can immediately see  the latest most popular messages posted on the Connect timeline.

You can also subscribe to the site’s RSS feeds so you get to know the latest messages posted on the site whenever you are checking your RSS Reader.

Honestly, TodaysMama’s Connect looks better than Twitter. But of course it’s a niche service, so we don’t really expect it to reach the same status as what Twitter has reached today.  For its captive audience and users, this Twitter-like service is no doubt bound for success, if it has not achieved this right now.

via WSJ

So looking back at what has been the subject of tech blogs this week, we have the something about the upcoming iPhone 3.0 release. This is a much awaited upgraded iPhone OS especially since it promises to deliver new functionality to the iPhone which iPhone users have been waiting for quite some time now. These functionality includes among other things – copy and paste utility, MMS sending, video calls, and iPhone 3G teethering. Combining these three features would certainly elevate the iPhone to the ranks of the PDA/Smartphone mobile phone categories. As it is right now, the iPhone is best at two things – as a mobile gaming device and as a portable device for on-the-go mobile web browsing. The new iPhone OS 3.0 is slated for a U.S. summer release, can’t wait long enough for this new OS, personally.

Next up, the browser wars heats up anew. Well at least for Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. Google announced that its Chrome browser is going back to beta mode. And by doing so, Google is also introducing some new features to Chrome including faster loading time and some nifty features such as auto scroll, full page zoom and a new way to drag and drop tabs to view them side by side each other.

Microsoft on the other hand has just made available the latest version of its browser – IE8. It’s finally the official stable version and Microsoft promises faster loading time, some cool features including accelerators which is Firefox lingo means plug-ins, and a host of other security features for users’ browsing benefits. Already, the IE8 is gathering mixed reactions from those who have been using the official version. Yes, those reactions are both negative and positive. Although I must admit that based on my short time using it, I really noticed a significant boost on the browsers page loading time.  Which is not the case for Google Chrome, as I find the beta version became unstable again. I lost count of the number of times Chrome bailed out on me.

And finally, Gmail Labs announced two significant features this week – email previewing of various contents from YouTue, Flickr, Picasa and Yelps. By activating this feature on your Gmail Labs tab in Gmail Settings tab, you can now view YouTube videos, view Flickr and Picasa photos as well as preview review items from Yelps. And we mean tos ay preview these contents if somebody attached them to Gmail messages. This simply means that you don’t have to visit the site anymore just to check whether the content interests you.

There you go, 3 big news that happened this week in the world we all live in. Who knows what it is going to be next week?

KillerTweets – offers some of the coolest Twitter backgrounds. When we say cool we mean, the gothic-artsy-kind of cool. And it’s relatively cheap as well at $9.

My Tweet Space – the site is a cool branding service for your Twitter profile, offering cool themes and Twitter profile badges for free. If you want a highly personalized Twitter profile promoting your product or brand, you have to pay a minimal amount.

Twitbacks – offers free Twitter backgrounds/themes but contains a small Twitback branding logo which can only be removed if you pay $4.95.

Twitter Backgrounds – an excellent place to download free images from a huge collection of wallpapers, for use as a Twitter background. Provides you with the best collection of backgrounds, themes and wallpapers for Twitter divided into several categories to make it easier for you to find the cool Twitter image you’re looking for.

Pretty Tweet – lets you design your own Twitter background/theme using the site’s Visual Designer for Twitter themes.

Custom Twitter Background – offers a paid service for customizing your Twitter background – $67.

Tweetstyle – offers a couple of free backgrounds that you can use on your Twitter profile aside from the paid customized Twitter background service. The site also has some good tutorial on how to change your Twitter background and other useful Twitter-related blog posts.

Twitter-Backgrounds – a new site offering some good collection of Twitter backgrounds which you can also use for MySpace and Friendster profile.

Custom Twitter Background – offers paid service for creating customized Twitter background and avatars. Prices range from $68 to $78.

The Talking iPod Shuffle

Apple’s tiny music player, the iPod Shuffle was my very first purchased Apple product. It was the first generation iPod shuffle. Nothing fancy, just plain old media player that allowed me to load enough music tracks to keep me company anywhere I go. It was a simple device and yet a very useful one. But that was then, now the iPod shuffle has been revitalized a new with the launch of its latest iteration – the talking iPod Shuffle.  This new iPod Shuffle aside from sporting yet again a diminutive size speaks out the title of the songs that you are about to play. Hence – the talking iPod Shuffle. Just how many more of iPod Shuffles are we going to see from Apple, we really don’t know. One thing I know for sure, I’m going to ask a friend who is coming from the U.S. to get me one of those new iPod Shuffles.

Google Gets its Voice

Sometime in 2007 Google acquired telephone service company GrandCentral. Google stopped accepting new users for this service but kept its current service at bay. Two years after, Google relaunched this service and now calls it Google Voice. With the new branding, Google promises  to give users  improved way you using their phone. It provides you with transcripts of your voicemail and nd archive and search all of the SMS text messages you send and receive. You can also use the service to make low-priced international calls and easily access Goog-411 directory assistance. Google Voice is available for previous members of GrandCentral, new membership will be accepted soon.

Facebook’s New Home Page and New User Features

We’ve already provided you with a comprehensive post regarding the new Facebook home page and the many new features that it has introduced. You may read our previous coverage here.  But if you’re too tired to read our lenghty posts a couple of days ago,  the main thing to remember is that the new Facebook home page is sleeker and cleaner than the previous design. 

Feature wise, you are now given with tons of options to activate on your Facebook home page. It lets you hide/unhide contacts’ updates, create and share content quickly.

There you have it. Three of the hottest headlines that hit the tech world this week.

But that’s just a minor issue and won’t really affect your Facebook experience unless you are subscribed to a highly active profile pages. The more important and more talked about issue about Facebook this week is of course the redesigned Facebook home page. It’s up for officially roll out next week. And Facebook has a demo tour of the new features of this home page.

That’s just about it for Facebook, we move now with Twitter. Actually, Twitter’s share of the media limelight came in just yesterday when some Twitter users noticed that the previously announced Twitter search engine started appearing on their Twitter pages. But prior to this, Twitter was also mentioned in the news items about Facebook’s announcement. More particularly, a comparison between the two most popular sites were made by many writers.

Going back in the earlier days of the week, the tech world was rocked by an announcement from Amazon – re the Kindle for iPhone application. Many were shocked and amazed to learn about the application.  It seems unfit that Amazon would have to make its catalog of Kindle books, magazines and newspapers to iPhone users, instead of encouraging them to buy the Kindle 2. But then some say that this would have no impact at all with the Kindle 2.  The Kindle for iPhone application is only available for the US iPhone users, like the Kindle 2.

So, those are the three big tech news that rocked the blogging world this week. Who knows what will happen next week? What’s it going to be folks?

The Twimailer Twitter Follow notification gives you some more useful Twitter-related information about the people who just followed you on Twitter. These include no. of  Twitter members they are following as well as those who are following them, snippets of latest Tweets, and their basic profile.

Twimailer just makes the email notifications more interesting and more functional. While this maybe a useful tool for some, others may actually refrain from using it for fear of having their email spammed. But Twimailer said that it does not keep users’ email information.  In fact they don’t keep anything, but are just acting as the middleman.

Here’s a sample Twimailer Twitter Follow notification email:

The incident happen last Tuesday morning around 9:30GMT. Immediately after some Gmail users started noticing that it has taken too long already for Gmail to come back after being down for several minutes. And so the news spread out. It has been Twittered, blogged, and written on Facebook walls and member statuses. The Gmail outage lasted for 2.5 hours. Users of the free web-based email service could only sigh for the time they lost or perhaps even opportunities, financial matters, and even personal stuff especially those who rely heavily on Gmail for doing their business transactions. But they have nothing to do, we can’t even complaint since we are using a free Gmail account.

The Gmail outage also affected those who have Business account with Gmail through the Google Business Apps. But Google was quick to appease them by offering a 15 day free usage of their Business Apps application.  Immediately thereafter Google issued a statement regarding the cause of the outage – the failing data centers in Europe. It was a gradual restoration process. Gmail made it in a systematic and orderly way. 

The Facebook TOS Saga Continues

This week the issue on Facebook’s change of some clause of the  TOS continues.  This has prompted Facebook to revert to their original TOS. and asked its member to participate  in the developme of the new TOS. There was also Competes deeper look into the trends that catapulted Facebook to the top as analyzed through Compete’s analytics.