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Is blogging for old people? Apparently so. Well, at least according to a new study from Pew Internet Project, that is. Today's youngest generation of online users are no longer interested in consuming long-form content like blogs, says the research. Instead, communication among teens tends to involve brief bursts of information, like a Facebook status update or a text message. Pew's findings state that only 14% of tweens and teens ages 12 to 17 now report that they blog, down from 25% only four years ago. They're also less interested in commenting on their friends' blogs, too, with only 52% reporting doing so, down from over three-quarters back in 2006.

Do you use WordPress and want to blog from your Android phone? Doing that just got a lot easier. Wordpress for Android - an open-source app backed by WordPress.org - is now available in the Android Market. With this app, anybody who blogs on WordPress.com or a self-hosted WordPress blog can post and edit blog posts, as well as moderate and post comments. In addition, the app will display notifications whenever a reader comments on a blog post.

Today, Pope Benedict XVI announced that priests and church leaders should be actively using digital tools, including the social web, to communicate with laypersons, particularly young people.

The occasion was the 44th annual World Communications Day, traditionally a time for the Vatican to project an annual message from the church to its people and the rest of the world. This year's message stood in sharp contrast to the missive he delivered in 2009, when the Holy See stated that mass media - including online information sources - acted as a "poison" that numbed morality and sensitivity. "'It recounts, repeats and amplifies evil," he said, "making us accustomed to horrendous acts, desensitizing us and, in some ways, poisoning us." So, why the about-face?

Home and Garden TV just announced that it has signed Heather Armstrong, author of hyper-popular early blog Dooce.com, to collaborate on unspecified "convergence media" projects.

The millions of readers who have followed Armstrong on her nine-year journey as an ex-Mormon mom who got fired for the contents of her blog and then made that blog an international phenomenon will no doubt be excited to see what she does with the TV network. Armstrong is a designer by training.

As some of our readers know, I was clumsy enough to hack off a chunk of my finger while making dinner a couple nights ago. This incident has severely curtailed my blogging activity, but it's led to a fortunate inspiration, as well!

For those of you who are differently-abled - temporarily or otherwise - or for those of you who are simply too lazy to type, here are a handful of resources for hands-free Internet use, from blog posting to Twitter updates to straight-up voice-to-text transcription services. I hope you find these apps as useful as I have.

According to a report released today [PDF] by Reporters Sans Frontières, the number of bloggers around the world arrested because of their online work jumped from 59 to 151 between 2008 and 2009, an increase of 155%. Additionally, one blogger died in prison and 61 were physically assaulted. The most infamous cases perhaps occurred during the violent unrest in Iran following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed reelection. But RSF said the number of overall arrests and attacks can actually be traced to crackdowns in at least 10 countries.

"The number of countries affected by online censorship has doubled from one year to the next - a disturbing tendency that shows an increase in control over new media as millions of netizens get active online," said Lucie Morillon, head of the group's Internet and Freedoms Desk.

An embargo is something that tech companies use to set a time when their product will launch and the press can publish their reviews of it. Embargoes aren't as simple as they sound and they aren't uncontroversial, either.

We believe they can be a good idea, though. Below we discuss why and share thoughts about how we think an embargo can be run well. If you've got comments to share, don't be shy, that's what the comments section of a blog is for.

"We live in public" isn't just the name of a film; it's an Internet truism.

For the past ten years, more and more of us have been using blogging platforms to share the details of our personal and professional lives. With the advent of microblogging, the sharing has escalated to include the most intimate, immediate, and even mundane details of one's daily grind. When pressures abound, venting online is second nature; but oversharing can bear disastrous consequences. The cure? Penzu's private-by-design, sharable-by-choice blogging software.

Through the bravery and efforts of people such as our good friend Drew Olanoff and the LIVESTRONG campaign, many social media users are much more aware of cancer and what this disease does to the body, mind, soul and community.

Today, on World AIDS Day, we'd like to direct your attention to a few folks on the social web who are facing lives with HIV/AIDS and have made the same brave choice to share that experience with the rest of us. Read on for bits and pieces of their stories as well as feeds and lists that will keep their struggles and triumphs in your thoughts.

After recent comScore data showed Twitter stats leveling off as WordPress traffic continued to grow, some bloggers framed the results as an either/or proposition; if one platforms wins, the other loses.

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg has weighed in on the subject, stating that the interaction between microblogging and what he's calling "megablogging" is hardly a zero-sum game. "It's not really a 'versus,' it's an 'and'," he wrote.

The new version of Wordpress for iPhone just arrived in the App Store (iTunes link). While the first version was already quite usable, this update brings a number of new features and usability enhancements to the Wordpress experience on the iPhone. The new interface makes it easier to switch between comments, posts and pages. The comments interface now also displays Gravatars. Throughout the app, the Wordpress team has tweaked the interface and it's now easier to manage your blog from the iPhone.

Ever have that moment when you wonder if what you're about to post will alienate you from the rest of the online world forever?

I get that sometimes, which says a lot more about my own insecurities and the extent to which the social Web replicates the social dynamics of high school than it does about any real risk. My social network includes some very forgiving, open-minded people... and the online world is much, much bigger than anything I've tapped into so far.

The new FTC guidelines for disclosure by bloggers have stirred up some anger among bloggers accustomed to getting free stuff and blogging about it without the heavy hand of governmental Big Brother yadda yadda - oh, you can finish the sentence yourself.

I'm not sure what it is about social media. Here we are in this field that's still emerging/exploding (or "explerging", to use the trademarked term from my upcoming book, premium podcast, and $4,000-a-seat webinar) and constantly morphing. Yet there seems to be this powerful drive to lay down absolute laws about what works and what doesn't.

In 2003, blogging software powerhouse Six Apart launched TypePad, a Movable Type-based hosted-blog service aimed at less tech-savvy users.

Today, the company has announced TypePad Developer Program, a resource that will give developers access to the TypePad API and back end while running their sites on their own web servers. Six Apart is simultaneously launching TypePad Motion, a microblogging service built from the Pownce code base. Six Apart acquired Pownce from founders Kevin Rose (also founder of Digg), Leah Culver, and Daniel Burka in December 2008.

Posterous, the popular minimalist blogging service, just released a major update to its service, which includes customizable themes, a feature a lot of users had been waiting for. Users can now choose between five different themes, all of which are highly customizable. According to the company, additional themes will be added over time. Users can now also easily import their Tumblr blogs and even use their Tumblr themes as Posterous now also supports the Tumblr theme format. Posterous also announced that its traffic grew tenfold over the last 12 months to 4.4 million unique visits last month.

Once considered the leading search engine for blog-related queries, Technorati has fallen by the wayside in recent years. With no known strategy around new forms of media, the company quickly began to lose ground as Twitter and other conversational tools grew in popularity. In early July when the company launched Twittorati, it already seemed too late. However, in a surprising move, Technorati is switching gears again with an invitation for writers to join the Technorati blogging network.

Fashion magazine Elle has hired a homeless and unemployed blogger named Brianna Karp... for $150 per month. Her new job/internship will require one hour of work per day; if she's still living in California she'll be making less than the state's $8 per hour minimum wage. Is this a case of old media cynically exploiting the homeless (and bloggers) or is it a great opportunity for the young woman? It might be both.

Whatever your opinion of the arrangement, it's hard to swallow Leanne Italie's Associated Press write-up calling it "a 21st century fairytale." Karp writes a blog called The Girl's Guide to Homelessness and says she's very excited about the opportunity. It makes me feel a little nauseous.

A few days ago, we got a chance to talk about the state of blogging and social media in Germany with Marcel Weiß, the editor of Netzwertig.com - one of Germany's most popular blogs. In the interview, Weiß told us that Germany is at least five years behind the U.S. when it comes to social media and its adoption by a larger part of society. Blogs are still considered to be suspect by a large part of the German public and have very little influence, and social news sites and aggregators attract very little attention. With regards to Germany's Internet startup scene, Weiß argues that, with very few exceptions, most companies are also years behind the U.S. and just aren't innovative enough to compete.

This month we are offering some additional value to our long-term sponsors. It's a new type of contextual link advertising and we think it is important to the future of blogging as a business. For our wider audience, some of whom operate websites that are monetized through advertising, the background may be interesting.