As SoundCloud recently hit 5 million users, blogger’s pleas for us to support the service grew too strong to ignore and we’ve added support for detecting embeds.

The info will show up as a track under the post in the same way as a music file.

There is a caveat: SoundCloud still doesn’t support artist meta info. What does this mean to you? If the SoundCloud account doesn’t belong to the artists, themselves, the “title” of the track should be Artist Name – Track Title. One space is required on either side of the dash. This is mainly for labels who upload many tracks by many different artists.

There still may be issues. Guessing the artist and title is a shitty way to do it, but that’s what SoundCloud gives us. I’m hoping they add an artist meta to the api at some point, but who knows.

(Hat tip to Hyperbolium for the conversation that lead to this)

We often get questions about how to let elbows know when you’ve updated rather than waiting for the bot to crawl. While the bot should check your feed a few times per hour (for regular posters), it’s always possible that we miss an update.

How to add http://elbo.ws/ping/ to your ‘Update Services’ area:

Movable Type – Log in to your account and go to the ‘Configuration’ section and click on ‘Preferences’. Scroll down to the area where you can find: ‘Publicity / Remote Interfaces / TrackBack’. Add http://elbo.ws/ping/ to other notification services.

WordPress – Log in to your account and go to the ‘Settings’ section. Click on the ‘Writing’ tab. Scroll down to ‘Update Services’ and add http://elbo.ws/ping/ to the box.

Blogger and others – Head over to http://elbo.ws/ping and throw in your url. You’ll have to do this manually, but it’s just one extra step when you want that post to go out ASAP.

Likewise, if you don’t blog for a long period of time (over a week), our bot will put you on the backburner. If you use ping within your blogging software, you’ll be all set. If not, you can head to http://elbo.ws/ping and jump start the process.

It’s important to note that Feedburner caches a copy of your feed so updates might not come through immediately.

It’s been a long time coming (probably too long), but we’ve finally added support for Vimeo videos today. Whenever you embed a Vimeo video going forward, it will show up with your post the same way Youtube videos have:

They will also count towards the Hot Video list. In fact, the Erykah Badu video in the example above is currently #3 on the Hot Video list.

I just wanted to post a quick note to say we’ve changed the way the bot will be crawling. If you’re using either the manual or automatic pings, this will not affect you – we will still crawl these as they come in.

Otherwise, here are a few things to take note of:

• Unapproved blogs get crawled at night. If you submit a new blog, you’re going to have to wait at least a day for it to be approved (but probably longer).
• Crawling has been optimized so that we get through all the blogs within 90 minutes during off-peak hours. We’ll monitor to see if this remains similar throughout the day.
• If you’re a very active blogger, you will be prioritized over bloggers who post less frequently. This is an attempt to decrease the number of failed scrapes. We don’t want to scrape an inactive blog more than an active blog.

Also, we will probably be implementing some sort of “holding pattern” for inactive blogs. This will probably mean that, if you haven’t posted anything for a week or longer, we will only crawl once per night.

Again, if you’re using the pinging services, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about – we will still crawl them as they come in. This is probably the best way to get us your posts as quickly as possible. Another thing to take note of is, if you are using feedburner, pinging MAY not always work as quickly. This is because feedburner caches your feed and your latest post does not always appear immediately in your feedburner feed. If you are concerned about this, send over a link to your raw feed and we’ll replace the feedburner link with it.

We are pleased to announce our first WordPress plugin. By installing this plugin and adding a bit of code to your single page template, you have the ability to give your readers access to additional related posts from the Elbows archive.

The latest version of the plugin will always be available here. Simply unzip it into your wp-content/plugins directory and activate via the admin panel.

Once installed, you can edit your settings here and add a bit of code to your wordpress theme (usually on your single post page):

<div id="related">
<h2>Related Posts from Elbows</h2>
<?php related_elbows_posts(); ?>
</div>


The related_elbows_posts() function will output an unordered list that can be styled accordingly.

If you have any suggested modifications or need help, feel free to email me at brandon (at) elbo.ws.

While Elbows can be an easy way to get all of your music news in one convenient location, some people may appreciate up to the minute tips, notes and news. For this, we turn to Twitter.

This is, of course, not a complete list. If your favorite blog is not listed, check their site or search for them on Twitter. If you’re a blogger and not listed, post in the comments and I’ll try to update accordingly.

http://puddlegum.net – @puddlegum
http://www.eachnotesecure.com – @eachnotesecure
http://blog.ipickmynose.com – @ipickmynose
http://holeytonal.com – @holeytonal
http://www.donewaiting.com – @donewaiting
http://www.earfarm.com – @earfarm
http://blog.largeheartedboy.com – @largeheartedboy
http://loudersoft.com – @loudersoft
http://www.hardcandymusic.com – @hardcandymusic
http://blog.wired.com/music – @listeningpost
http://www.drownedinsound.com – @drownedinsound
http://dctobc.com – @DCtoBC
http://nasdank.com – @NASDANK
http://radioexile.com – @radioexile
http://captainsdead.com – @captainsdead
http://www.nialler9.com – @nialler9
http://www.somuchsilence.com – @somuchsilence

And, of course, you can always follow our updates here: @elbows

Updates:

http://www.blackcountrygrammar.co.uk – @jonthebeef
http://neonlimelight.com – @neonlimelight
http://www.popsense.com – @PopSense
http://www.howwastheshow.com – @howwastheshow
http://www.buzzgrinder.com – @seancannon
http://www.ninebullets.net – @autopsy4

Tomorrow is election day in the US and bloggers are urging people to find their local voting locations in order to cast their ballots.

Here are some posts from around the music blogosphere:

Vague Space’s 50 Songs for 50 States
Leading with five election-related tunes from the likes of Sufjan, Radiohead and Death Cab, Vague Space did their homework coming up with a song for each of the 50 states.

Jordan Shaw Endorses The Cobrasnake
He may be Canadian, but we’re living in a world where American politics affect every country (especially our friendly neighbors to the north). That’s why JSHAW is openly endorsing The Cobrasnake.

Donewaiting.com Has a First Hand Account of an Obama Rally in Ohio
With Barack Obama drawing huge crowds across the midwest, it’s interesting to get a first hand account from a participant. But, only as a music blogger can do, Wes Flexner reports on the selected music in his excellent recap.

Invisible Oranges Shares The Results of The Economist‘s World Vote Experiment
Two questions raised here: What if the world could vote? and, given those results, Why is this even close? Even if you don’t stay tuned for the grindcore tracks, the commentary and link to The Economist are worth checking out.

Lastly, this video has been making it’s way up the Elbows Hot Video list:

These are, of course, just a few of the music bloggers actively talking about this election. For more topics, try these tags and /or searches: vote, politics, election, obama, mccain, palin

My Old Kentucky Blog founder, Craig “Dodge” Lile, has launched a new site featuring exclusive performances from groups such as Dr Dog, The Spinto Band and Bon Iver.

After recording audio from more than 80 performances at Pendleton Heights High School, Dodge and high school radio station general manager and teacher, Jeff DuPont, with the video expertise of Tim Wilsbach began recording both audio and video. A few weeks back, they started making it available via LaundroMatinee.com. It has a very personal feel to it and is definitely worth checking out. Their Bon Iver session can be seen here.

Over the past week, music bloggers using Google’s Blogger.com have been complaining that their posts are being removed without their consent. While Blogger allows users to quickly toss up a site, seasoned writers often graduate to a more robust software package such WordPress.

It seems as though this recent censorship is convincing more and more Blogger users to jump ship. This week, veteran music bloggers, Quick Before it Melts and The Music Slut have made the jump, not only to WordPress, but to their own domain names. (congrats to them)

With Blogger removing more and more posts daily, how long will it be before more music (and other) blogs move to WordPress? If you have a story about Google censoring your posts, leave it in the comments. If you’re switching to WordPress, check the Elbows Music Blogger community here to get started or start a new discussion if you need help.

Kanye West has been hogging the Elbows’ Hot Artist chart since shortly after the MTV VMA’s when tracks from his upcoming album, 808s & Heartbreak, started leaking like Valerie Plame’s whereabouts. As much as we love us some Kanye, there’s got to be more, right?

The fact is, the entire list has stood somewhat stagnant with Radiohead and MGMT occupying their assumed positions in the top five. The new Oasis release, Dig Out Your Soul, has secured them a top spot as did the Department of Eagles with their debut, In Ear Park.

If you only follow the top artists, you might be surprised to notice that some other, non-Kanye items might be of interest:

5. Wassup 2008
The guys that appeared in those annoying Budweiser commercials from 1999 – 2002 are back with political / social commentary.

4. CMJ 2008 Recap
Last week was the 2008 CMJ Music Festival in NYC.  A ton of shows took place and a lot of bloggers are buzzing about their experiences, posting pics and reviews of new bands.

3. M.I.A. to release new EP
The thought-to-be-retiring, recently knocked-up summer superstar, M.I.A., announced that she will be releasing a three song EP including a remix of Boyz featuring Jay-Z.

2. Bloc Party’s Intimacy Gets Physical
For those of you (myself included) who purchased Bloc Party‘s Intimacy in digital format, this might not seem like that big of a deal at first glance. However, if your album art has been a black square that says Intimacy in it, you can now grab the official album art from iTunes (or Amazon). Also, there are some bonus tracks floating around.

1. Q-Tip is Back
Blogs have been buzzing lately about Q-Tip’s first album in 6 years and first official release since 1999‘s Amplified. The word is that The Renaissance is more sing-songy than rap, but there hasn’t been a lack of praise.