YouTube today introduced its Video Speed Dashboard – a free service that shows you your video speed compares to the average for your ISP, your region, your state and more.

The service also plots your video speed over time:

According to YouTube:

The goal with this dashboard is to give you insight into what your YouTube speed looks like compared to the YouTube speed of users in other regions and different ISPs. We may also list the YouTube speeds for users in you neighborhood but with different ISPs.

The speed numbers are calculated by measuring the speed at which YouTube video is received by the browser. This is then averaged over the previous 30 days provided you’ve used the same browser during this time period.

If your video speed is slower than others on your ISP, it may mean that your home or work network is slowing your access down. You can also use the information to see if video speed on your ISP’s network is slower than others in the region.

While YouTube’s Video Speed Dashboard provides interesting information – it doesn’t provide you with some sort of basic red light or green light indicator on how well your connection will work with Internet video.

This video tutorial, by Brent Powell, looks at how to use free software – Audacity – to record, edit and export a podcast.

Audacity is available for Mac, Windows and Linux.

CNet’s Veronica Belmont and Tom Merrit offer their take on the basics of podcasting in Podcasting 101.

They cover:

• basic podcasting mics
• podcasting software
• podcasting mixers
• Audacity
• podcast hosting
• RSS Feeds
• OurMedia.org
• podcast subscription
• FeedBurner
• podcast promotion
• iTunes

It’s the 10,000 foot view – but it’s a good basic overview.

My Urban Report‘s Amani Channel offers his thoughts on how to pick the best video camera to vlog or video podcast with.

If you’re looking for somebody to tell you the camera to buy, you’re going to be disappointed. But Channel raises some of the main issues to consider.

And he’s got a giant mic prop.

Here’s the real reason, though, that there’s no one “best video camera” for vlogging or video podcasting:

Podcast hosting network Wizzard Media today announced the availability of In App Purchasing for its Podcast Apps in the iTunes App store.

Wizzard’s iPhone App is designed to be quickly customized for each podcast. It lets podcast publishers offer their own iPhone App.

With In App Purchasing capabilities, podcast publishers will be able to offer their paid audience additional features and content, charging a one-time fee or a reoccurring subscription price.

According to Wizzard, their top publishers have converted about a quarter of their audience from free, to paid users, with an average app price of $1.99.

“Now, podcasting becomes a platform that converts audiences to revenue, accelerated by the micropayment billing process that Apple has created with the App store,” says Chris Spencer, Wizzard Media CEO. “We believe this new process is the future model for how digital media will be published, audiences grown and revenues derived.”

The updated App was recently approved by Apple and is available for Wizzard’s podcast companion App publishers immediately.

Next time your podcasting/vlogging/new media mojo is failing you – remember that it would be hard to fail more catastrophically than live streaming yourself, screencasting yourself live streaming, screencasting yourself………

via BB

Daisy Whitney’s latest New Media Minute video podcast takes a look at comic books – a $1 billion business that hasn’t really been hit by digital media yet.

Yet the industry is already looking ahead to see how it can adapt to the iPad and other tablet ereaders.

Is it time to add comic books to the Print Media Deathwatch?

WordPress.org has announced an update to WordPress for iPhone.

The update is focused on improved comment moderation, including:

• Reply to Comments
• Edit Comments
• Highlighting the new items in the comment list

Missing in action are the spiffy vlogging features introduced last week in WordPress For BlackBerry.

While iPhone users may be envious of the BlackBerry WordPress editor, the improved comment moderation features are probably are more critical for most.

The update is available now in iTunes. WordPress for iPhone is a free, open source application.

Tablet computers are going to be a $20 billion industry by 2014, and the Apple iPad is well-positioned to dominate it, predicts research firm In-Stat.

According to In-Stat:

• The Total Available Market for tablets will be about 50 million in 2014.
• Mainstream tablets should be in the $400-$500 range.
• Apple is the only company that will offer an entire solution that includes content and applications.

“Tablets have quickly become a high priority for competitors across the value chain, including mobile operators,” says Jim McGregor, In-Stat analyst. “Even more important, is that the opportunity in tablets is complementary to other mobile devices, particularly smartphones and netbooks.”

In-Stats’ view on the iPad and the tablet computer market is much rosier than that of many analysts. But they accurately point out that, if tablet computing does take off, Apple is positioned to have a complete solution years ahead of other companies.

Do you think that the market for tablet computers in 2014 will be anywhere near the 50 million that In-Stat predicts?

TweetDeck has announced an updated TweetDeck desktop client, with improved social media features.

This official video demonstrates the new features.

Highlights of TweetDeck 0.33:

• View media from Flickr, YouTube and Posterous;
• Better column management;
• Edit searches; and
• Automatic Twitter API management.

It’s available now at the TweetDeck site.