So we are almost there with the SlashGear iPad app. The RC1 still has some bugs to iron out, but it’s getting there. Enjoy the video demo.

Overview

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We launched SlashGear iPhone app last month and will be launching our iPad app in a week or so. The iPad App would be so much different than the iPhone counterpart. Here are some screenshots.

It has been interesting and educational two months; I had the chance to use several major CDN services on SlashGear. Choosing the right CDN is a matter of pricing/budget, delivery technology or features and POP availability. The CDN vendors I had the opportunity to try are MaxCDN, InterNAP, Highwinds, Akamai, and EdgeCast.

MaxCDN has the best implementation of web based management console. I really enjoy using them and still do use them on R3 Media sites (SlashPhone and AndroidCommunity). The cache-hit number is pretty impressive at 96.62%. Unfortunately MaxCDN does not have presence in Asia where 12% of our traffic came from (95% for SlashGear Japan). Last I heard, they are planning POPs in Asia.

I don’t have many complainw on InterNAP, however they are not the fastest of bunch, but not the slowest either -routing sometimes does not provide the best route.. Pricing is pretty competitive.

HighWinds is a very affordable CDN vendor, unfortunately it rewrites files URL rather than sticking with predefined CNAME you have setup for the account. Great reporting tools (entirely made of Flash) and control panel.

Akamai is the big dog in CDN business; I was very excited when giving it a try. It has robust control panel, fast aggregation of content when setting up origin pull, and it has many POP around the world. Speed is impressive, however I was disappointed to find out it was not the fastest out of the bunch and pricing is amazingly high unless you commit to a high bandwidth bucket. If you don’t need much bandwidth you can try VPS.NET, they are Akamai reseller with reasonable price.

EdgeCast was one of the CDN I didn’t plan to include in my search for CDN vendor, but I’m glad I did. Sales were very accommodating and responsive. Setup was quick and simple, however I wish their management control panel would provide origin pull progress and detail reporting. They performed the best during my usage (Pulling data from Dallas, LA and Nagoya), almost 28 percent faster compared to InterNAP and 14 percent faster compared to Akamai. I was very surprised by the delivery speed on small object (has not tested video delivery yet – large file object). Pricing is very competitive and they will work it out depending on your situation and usage.

So by the end of the day, I picked EdgeCast CDN to power SlashGear.com, and SlashGear.jp due to its performance and pricing. However video files are still being serve-using HighWinds as part of UK2Group sponsorship.

Disclosure : MaxCDN sponsored SlashPhone & AndroidCommunity CDN bandwidth. UK2Group sponsored SlashGear TV videos bandwidth using HighWinds CDN.

It is a privilege to have Ben Bajarin from Creative Strategies on SlashGear. Looking forward to read his thoughts on the tech industry with his column at SlashGear Ben also blog about technology on his tech blog here.

About Ben Bajarin

Since joining Creative Strategies in 2000 Ben has researched the global transition from analog to digital in consumer technologies and entertainment media. He has focused on projects and developed strategies in the markets of the digital home ecosystem, mobile computing, digital lifestyle and interactive entertainment, trying to understand how and why consumers will use new digital technologies in their everyday lives. His expertise is in understanding the Gen X and Millenial consumers and their present and future demands for technology.

His research and strategic work spans digital entertainment and media, brand marketing and awareness, social media and consumer products and services. Ben manages Creative Strategies behavioural analysis and digital home research center where the impacts of many consumer behaviours, digital home / family and digital lifestyle technologies are studied.

His current and past clients have included Sony, HP, Dell, Toshiba, Philips, Palm, NVIDIA, Intel, AMD and Microsoft to name a few. He speaks regularly at industry events and trade shows, appears frequently on technology radio shows, is quoted frequently by the press and has regular television appearances commenting on the latest technology news.

I keep track on how our network sites are doing around the analytic realm. The reason for this is not to stroke my own ego, but to understand the trend and gather information on how our users reacts to content published on our sites. One of my favorite place to find these analytic information is a site call Wikio. To understand more on how the ranking are being calculated, I asked Wikio’s Community Executive Marjorie Montillon about the ranking’s placement. Here is what she has to said on this matter:

The position of a blog in the Wikio ranking depends on the number and weight of the incoming links from other blogs. These links are dynamic, which means that they are backlinks or links found within articles.

Only links found in the RSS feed are included. Blogrolls are not taken into account, and the weight of any given link increases according to how recently it was published. We thus hope to provide a classification that is more representative of the current influence levels of the blogs therein.

Moreover, the weight of a link depends on the linking blog’s position in the Wikio ranking. With our algorithm, the weight of a link from a blog that is more highly ranked is greater than that of a link from a blog that is less well ranked.

The rankings are updated on a monthly basis.

The Wikio rankings do not take into account either the Google PageRank or traffic of your blog. We use our own algorithm.

In another words, Wikio is an upstream analytics provider and gather their own data rather than aggregating it from other services. Below is the Feb 2010 Ranking that Marjorie sent to me for sneak preview before it goes up on Wikio this Friday. Wikio publishes ranking monthly on the 5th of each month. SlashGear seats at #16 this month.

Read on why I switched to Google’s Nexus One. Not saying I would not use the iPhone x.x version in the future, but for now, Nexus One fits me like a glove.

I’m honored that SlashGear was added to WordPress showcase for our unique implementation of WordPress & BBPress.

Quoted from WordPress Showcase

Why it’s in the Showcase: SlashGear is a major gadget and technology blog that receives millions of readers per month and uses WordPress to power its entire site, including main site, bbPress-powered forums, and video site. All three sites have integrated user tables and login session sharing.

For the past 6 months I’ve been working on a new project outside R3 Media LLC with my business partner Vincent Nguyen and a great developer Daniel Lim. The project is called eGether; a multi-dimensional social portal for consumers, reporters, analysts and PR practitioners. Curious? Then head over to eGether now!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Come together with eGether a collaborative multi-dimensional service combining the best functionality from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn.

Scottsdale, AZ, and Dallas, TX — December 8, 2009 — Addressing consumer demand to have one site that links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn, eGether is launching today in public beta (http://egether.com/). A collaborative multi-dimensional social portal for consumers, reporters, analysts and PR practitioners, eGether is centered around an Activity Pitching Engine (APE) that combines 255 character status updates and 999 character pitches, using familiar @ status messaging for inter-user communication. Status updates can include one image, while pitches can include image and video content (including embedded YouTube), documents such as DOC, PDF and ZIP, and hyperlinks.

eGether was founded by Vincent Nguyen and Ewdison Then after they had grown frustrated using a combination of existing networking tools to collaborate. They developed eGether to bring the best of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn functionality and features into one easy-to-manage social networking service structured around Activities and Connections. Activities originate from user status updates and pitches, combined with user-defined contact information, online galleries that can be tagged with people and products. Connections include private and public circles — groups of other eGether users with whom they collaborate, or topics about which they are interested.

eGether also allows consumers to obtain product and service information direct from the source, rather than second-hand. Consumers can use global search for the latest company news and reviews, and PR firms can freely pitch their clients’ products and services, rather than sending out individual alerts.

eGether offers a single information point with a custom URL for users that can be shared via email, Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere. Visitors can then engage in discussions with everyone from consumers, to people in the media, to analysts, or even engineers involved in the company. eGether also empowers users to connect and share what’s on their mind, or even just to share their thoughts on the shiny new gadget they received over the holidays.

To start taking advantage of eGether’s powerful social networking tools, sign up at http://egether.com/signup.

eGether is supported by an advisory board including Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, Inc. (www.creativestrategies.com); Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy and analysis at Interpret, LLC (www.gartenblog.net); Seth Combs, interactive brand strategist(www.sethcombs.com); and Judie Lipsett, tech blogger and founder of GearDiary (www.geardiary.com).

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For more information, contact

Vincent Nguyen
vincent [at] r3media.com
+1 (917) 477-7911

http://eGether.com/Vincent

Ewdison Then
ethen [at] r3media.com
+1 (917) 720-8281

http://eGether.com/Ewdi

All marks are the property of their respective owners.