Twitter is hot right now, and without doubt there is a huge demand on integrating it with other applications such as FaceBook, YouTube and most importantly, WordPress. While trying to get a plugin that will post my latest blog entries to Twitter, I came across not one, not two, but over 23 different plugins.

I eventually settled for the Twitme plugin – it’s simple and does just what I want it to do. However, here are some other plugins you can use for Twitter.

Once installed all you need to do is enter your Twitter username and password, and select a posting template. I just use a basic one like this: %POSTTITLE% : %POSTURL%

Here’s how the results look like:

You can also choose to publish your 5 most recent posts to Twitter, and on the settings page you can all all your Twitter followers and also recent updates from people you are following.

Here are other Twitter plugins worth checking out, grouped by functions.

Syndicate Your Blog Posts to Twitter

• Twitter Tools – Twitter Tools is a plugin that creates a complete integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account
• @ Reply – This plugin allows you to add Twitter-like @reply links to comments. When clicked, those links insert the author name and a link to the comment you are replying to in the textarea.
• Twitme – This plugin allows you to automatically post your new posts on the twitter website
• Twitpress – Echoes user definable notification of published blog entries to twitter
• Bird Feeder – Tweets your about your posts when they are published
• WP to Twitter – Posts a Twitter status update when you update your blog or post to your blogroll, using the Cligs URL shortening service
• Twitter updater w/ TinyURL – Updates Twitter when you create a new blog post utilizing TinyURL.com

Display Twitter Stats

• TwitterCounter – Integrate TwitterCounter.com badges on your blog to display the number of followers you have on Twitter

Displaying Tweets on Your WordPress Blog

• Twitter for Wordpress – Twitter for WordPress displays yours latest tweets in your WordPress blog
• MyTwitter – MyTwitter allows users to display their recent Twitter updates (tweets) on their blog and update their status through the Options page
• SimpleTwitter – SimpleTwitter displays the most recent twitter post (tweet) for a given user. The tweet is cached on the webserver for a number of minutes
• Twitter Widget Pro – A widget that properly handles twitter feeds, including @username and link parsing. It supports displaying profiles images, and even lets you control whether to display the time and date of a tweet or how log ago it happened (about 5 hours ago, etc)
• twitterDash – twitterDash adds twitter to your WordPress-dashboard
• Twitterdoodle – Allows a user to create posts and categories based on Twitter keyword searches. Each post would be a digest of twitter posts in that category
• Tweet You – Putting twitter on your website with tweet!, an unobtrusive javascript plugin for jquery

Sharing Tweets / Multi Teeets

• Tweet Tweet – This plugin archives your tweets, and the tweets of those you follow in your database. It also stores replies from other people, as well as direct messages
• Twitter Feed – The Twitter Feed plugin makes including and linking to tweets on multiple Twitter accounts simple and flexible
• Twitter Blaster – Twitter Blaster is a plugin that will allow your visitors to post to your Twitter account

Miscellaneous Twitter Plugins

• Tweet This – Adds a Twitter icon to every post and page, so your readers can share your blog entries on their Twitter accounts with ease
• Top Twitter Links – Widget that displays currently popular links that have been tweeted
• WP Twitter Pitch – This plugin provides PR companies and users wanting to pitch, a means to give an “elevator” pitch in 140 characters or less
• Twitterfountain – Twitterfountain mashes up tweets and Flickr-images that share the same tags into a spectacular visual
• Tweet Rooster – A widget that allows people to twitter directly from your blog

There are other plugins as well, but based on rating these seem to be a complete waste of your time so I wont list them here. Remember you can search for these plugins, and automatically install plugins from your WordPress dashboard.

If you’re looking for a better Twitter marketing solution do check out Viral Twitter Profits.

Before we move on to help you make rich podcasts, here is a brief introduction if this wonderful service you can provide to your audience:

A podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers.

Podcasts make you stand different amongst the cloud of blogs which target the same niche.

Moving on to the theme of this post, we shall today see the importance of music for your podcasts. One definitely needs a good background music to add to a podcast to deliver more power on to the content. Music help you grab instantaneous attention of the audience. There may be several instances when you may need to add music to a podcast. Few of them include,

• Creation of paid multimedia content for your blog or website no doubt needs one of the best presentations to get a better ROI.
• Preparation of a website presentation or a video message for your audience on your blog.
• Creation of a good audio message on your blog which may be a welcome message or an announcement.
• Submission of your videos to video directories needs music to make it more appealing.
• Adding music as a backdrop to your tele-seminars. This makes it look cooler than otherwise.

There is a plethora of ways in which one can use music effectively to add stars to your blog or website. This not only makes your blog look happening but gives a professional touch to the subject.

How to get music for your podcast? FOR FREE.

Yes, you read that correctly! After having seen quite a few valid reasons to use music in your podcasts, we shall now move on to see places where we can get royalty-free music. If you have a heavy pocket, you may go ahead and pay fee to get music from a lot of paid-websites or jump down to these options to get your work done, all for free!

PremiumBeat

RoyaltyFreeMusic

DownloadSoundEffects

MusicTracksLibrary

Trakax

Royalty-Free

These are a few top notch websites which render free music for your podcasts. Use them and add power to your online content. We would welcome any feedbacks. Enjoy!

Let’s look at who can use authorSTREAM

This platform is ideal for many people, especially if you want to share your knowledge with the world. For all I know you could even create a blog around tutorials designed with power point and then use authorSTREAM to upload and share them.

authorSTREAM is ideal for:

• Teachers looking to deliver their presentation to students via the web
• Entertainers trying to reach as many people as they can
• Friends and families seeking to keep in touch by sharing their picture slide shows and greetings
• Co-workers and classmates attempting to exchange content such as project presentations, homework assignments etc

Supported files: authorSTREAM currently support PowerPoint files (PPT, PPS, PPTX and PPSX formats) only.

To ensure absolute functionality of author STREAM on your computer you have to install Flash 8 or above.

How can you share authorSTREAM?

Once you upload your presentation to your authorSTREAM profile you can choose between several platforms to share them.

• Share them via embedding in blog posts
• Embed in network profiles
• Upload to You Tube
• Upload to iTunes and use in your iPod.

To get started you can create a free profile and get creative with your first presentation, created with Open Office.

We’ve known how FireFox changed the we browse the Internet today. Plugins, addons, themes and styles were not even in dreams of IE users until this revolutionary product was flagged off. Kudos to Firefox team!

The latest release of the powerful Internet browser was made available to the world on 17th of June’2008. If you missed out on getting a certificate for helping Firefox get hold of a Guinness world record, you may get a copy of yours here. Hurry!

Monika mentioned about the Firefox 3 final release which was scheduled on 17th of this month, in one of her previous posts. It was a candidate for – The Guinness World Record for the Most Software Downloaded in 24 Hours. As an update, to your surprise, the total download count crossed 11,000,000 mark! Look out for the screenshot which I took while writing this.

The new web browser proudly showcasts its superiority from the other browsers in terms of :

• New features
• Security
• Productivity
• Customization

A detailed list of all features in the above mentioned categories can be found here.

We have already heard and have dirtied our hands over a lot of available plugins which enhance the web browsing experience one has with Firefox. If you’ve missed out on some of our previous reviews about Firefox addons, you may check out the – must have Firefox extensions article. As an update, we have also described the marvellous support of Zemanta on Firefox.

So just incase you’ve missed out on the Firefox download bandwagon, you may do it now. I’ll be happy to see your feedback as comments to this article. Stay tuned!

For instance you can use the inbuilt clipboard and save images and links for later use which comes handy when you work with several applications at once.

You can also open your previously set up blog editors right from within the sidebar of Flock 2.0 Beta. This can be a nifty time saving feature and with their increased security, it should be safe enough to use.

Flock 2.0 Beta also supports a people tab which allows you to share anything of worth with your online social networking friends.

You can drag and drop photos, feeds and videos, as well as text from webpages and the media minibar and share all this with them.

If you are logged into any of the supported profiles you can even send instant messages to and from.

On the right you see all the supported social media sites that can be directly accessed from within Flock’s 2.0 Beta sidebar.

Also, email accounts like Gmail, AOL mail and Yahoo mail are supported, saving you heaps of time by not having to open various windows and logging into each application individually.

A really cool feature is their feed support. On the click of a button you can see common site feeds as well as import your own OPM file from Google or Bloglines (or any other feed readers).

Flock 2.0 Beta also supports tabbed browsing allowing you to browse multiple sites at once.

If you browse a site that supports media streams the orange media button will highlight to the left of your browser. If you click it you can choose to import the available media streams into your browser.

All in all, I’m a lot more impressed with Flock’s 2.0 Beta release than I have been with their first one last year. Although I had a look I wasn’t impressed enough to give them a serious go.

This version however is a little different and knowing that they buddied up with Firefox 3 version makes it all the more tempting for sure.

It loads fast enough and I didn’t find it to be slower than Firefox itself. Plus you can incorporate all your existing settings when you first download to get you off to a great start.

There is way more in Flock 2.0 Beta than I have covered here, but to experience the features you are best off to become a Flock 2.0 Beta Test Pilot yourself.

In the past, when webmasters wanted to have new updated blog content, a short visit to Technorati quickly revealed whispers of the blogosphere. The inbuilt WordPress feature of incoming links was also cool as it allowed blog owners to thank the person who linked to them via a comment on their blog.

I always tried to stay up to date and show courtesy where it was applicable but lately I noticed a standstill in my Dashboard and wondered whether everybody had stopped linking to me. By the way, I’m still running the pre-WordPress 2.5 version and then it was Technorati links that show up in your Dashboard.

In the new versions it is Google blog search links that show within the admin. So noting the standstill I realized that people still linked to me but it would no longer show within my WordPress dashboard.

Not knowing why, it was made all too clear when Mashable posted an entry titled Twitter Killed Technorati, Too. By then it all became clear and after checking the Twitter search engines mentioned on their blog I realized that Technorati indeed seems to have lost some of their previous oomph.

One of the major reasons why I haven’t upgraded yet was because of the nifty Technorati feature, but seeing what I do now there is no holding me back to upgrade once and for all.

What about you? Have you noticed a change in Technorati too?

Icons aren’t just icons either. They make a bold statement about you and your ability to look cool. They help you to set yourselves apart from the masses and like a car number plate they say something about the owner.

On my search for some nice and different sets of stock icons I came across some very good designs. Some cost a little more than others but in the end, you have to decide whether it is worth the expense or not.

As you know, looking good has its price. Enjoy!

WackyPixels

StockIcons

Med Designs

Icon Shock

IconKits

Iconica

IconFish

FastIcon

InterfaceLift

It took 34 months of active development, 5 beta versions and 2 RC’s to get to this very moment. Hailed as the best browser in the whole wide world of the web, Mozilla’s creators have found mercy with us lowly Internet users and decided to finally put our minds at rest.

They take their development quite serious too if we are to believe their statement. Upon asked when the new version will be released they coolly say “when it’s ready”. Oh well, let’s hope that the long wait will be worth it after all.

For some reasons I do believe it will. I suppose it does take quite some work to make sure everything is compatible and enough feedback has been received to iron out the bugs before releasing version 3 to the masses.

So if that takes your fancy, you can host your own Mozilla party or attend one in your neck of the woods instead. So far there has been a lot of interest in the community and the folks at Mozilla want to set a new record. The Guinness World Record for the Most Software Downloaded in 24 Hours.

To be part of this massive event, check out their party site.

Take part in the Mozilla Guinness World Record Day and take your Pledge Now:

Not only can you see how many readers are online on your site at all times, but the program will also show you were they came from, your latest direct Google traffic hits and much more. Woopra is even available in a handy offline application that will convert your desktop into a super spy machine.

If you always wanted to be a stats whore, now you can be as Woopra is all the stats programs you already know turned into one and then updated.

One negative is that I signed up with them more than a week ago and I’m still waiting for approval. I guess they are very busy as they already made some waves via Twitter notifications and featured news.

Features of Woopra

Woopra has a rich user interface: you won’t feel lost by looking at the stats within Woopra. Everything has been preciously balanced to give you an easy to use and responsive software that doesn’t slow down your response time either.

Future developments will include various color schemes as well as themes.

Real time analytics: this is super cool. Since Woopra will give you a lot of insight into what’s happening at your site right now, you can act accordingly. If you see a spike in traffic you can be ready for action, whatever that might incorporate.

You can manage multiple blogs and websites: Whether you have one or several blogs and sites, Woopra will be there to show you the inside deal of your traffic stats.

Live tracking and web statistics: Webmasters can track over 40 different statistical events on their sites. Another bonus is that Woopra offers live stats. What is happening right now at all times. I told you, chances are that you will be the next stats whore as it will be hard to limit yourself to the basics when looking at the massive interface.

Easy installation: The installation guide will be a useful tool to help you get Woopra up and running. It works on any recent versions of Windows as well as Mac and Linux.

Developer tools: Woopra is an advanced service that contains an API which leaves it wide open for future developments and expansion.

Visitor and member tagging: If your readers make a comment or even register on your site, you can track their behavior on site, giving you valuable insights.

Real time notifications: You can set Woopra to give you instant alerts for specific users such as search terms, languages, countries, IP addresses, browsers and more. This is where Woopra will become addictive since it is cool to know when specific events or visits can become instantly actionable to the webmaster.

Click to chat: This is a cool feature since webmasters can break down the barriers of behind and in front of “house”. Interaction with readers can become possible all of a sudden with the help of chat. Readers don’t even have to download anything.

Search and deep analytics: a the click of your mouse you can execute any type of search within your Woopra admin. All the data is searchable to dig deeper.

To see this cool program and sign up for free click here. Just be aware that they are in beta and approval might take a while.

WidgetBox is a smart online application that lets you share, connect, create and express using widgets on a wide range of platforms. Their easy to use tools allow you to create your own widgets or alternatively use somebody else to express your interests on your blog.

You can even turn your blog into a widget using WidgetBox. There are widgets for count down clocks, series announcements, music, news, pets, weather, games, movies, family and many more topics. It ads interactivity to your blog and makes people stay around longer.

You can even create a widget for your social media platforms that show your readers at any stage what you were up to. See the image to the left for more.

There are so many ways to showcase and create widgets that you will be finding yourself busy for hours.

You can even keep your readers updated on your progress at the gym with the gyminee widget.

WidgetBox also provides easy installation help for a wide range of platforms, such as:

• Facebook
• Bebo
• MySpace
• Blogger
• TypePad
• WordPress
• LiveJournal
• Tagged
• Freewebs
• iGoogle
• Netvibes
• Pageflakes
• Hi5
• Piczo
• Ning (OpenSocial)
• Widget Code

Once you have installed a widget panel (that is the container which holds your widget/s) on your site for the first time you can easily rearrange your widgets without ever having to change code on the blog again.

These little applications can make your blog a bit more user friendly, given that you don’t over do it. This is actually quite hard as there are so many cool widgets to choose from.

Limit is the key I believe though. You don’t want to end up with a cluttered blog full of widgets.

Go check it out and see what I mean. WidgetBox FAQ.