Briefly: Piano Wizard review

In brief: We have a review of Piano Wizard, a game that teaches piano, Apple is 11th in Web traffic, a new MacHeist bundle has debuted, and a promotion offers Sonicfire Pro 4.5 for free ... We've postd a review of Piano Wizard, a game that approaches learning to tickle the ivory in an innovative way. Piano Wizard makes whiling away the hours feels less like torture and more like gaming fun. Although the software is aimed at children, adults can certainly learn to play the piano with it too. The first screen includes buttons to set up your keyboard, watch demos, enter Easy Mode or Premiere, if you bought that version, and to check for updates.

Apple 11th in Web traffic

comScore, a leader has released analysis of U.S. consumer activity at top online properties for March 2008 from its comScore Media Metrix service. Radio sites experienced a sharp increase in traffic in March with the category growing 27 percent to 61.8 million visitors, making it the top-gaining category for the month. AOL Music led the category with 21.9 million visitors (up 5 percent), followed by Yahoo! Music with nearly 20.8 million visitors (up 4 percent) and Clear Channel Online with 11 million visitors (up 2 percent). Other significant increases were experienced by Pandora.com (up 9 percent), Citadel Broadcasting Corporation (up 11 percent), and Disney Music (up 17 percent). Apple Inc. came in 11th, right behind the Time Warner (excluding AOL), with 48,374,000 unique visitors.

New MacHeist bundle debuts

It's time for another MacHeist. This time around, the bundle is selling for $49 and features twelve pieces of Mac shareware software, including iClip, CoverSutra, Cha-Ching, Overflow, Awaken, Xslimmer, DEVONthink Personal, WriteRoom, Wallet and three Pangea games: Enigmo, Bugdom 2, Nanosaur 2. MacHeist will be donating 25% of net sales to ten participating charities, including Action Against Hunger, AIDS Research Alliance, Alliance for Climate Protection, Direct Relief International, Humane Society International, The Nature Conservancy, Save the Children, Save Darfur, Prevent Cancer Foundation, and World Wildlife Fund. So far, MacHeists have raised $700,000 for charity. The online sale will last for 30 days, and end on midnight, EST, May 12th.

Promotion offers Sonicfire Pro 4.5 for free

SmartSound has announced a promotion, under which users can buy Multi-Layer Music Disc and receive Sonicfire Pro 4.5 Standard Edition for free. Sonicfire Pro 4.5 purchasers are also eligible for a free upgrade to the Scoring Edition of Sonicfire Pro 5 when it is released in June. Or, users can add the Network Edition of Sonicfire Pro 4.5 for $200. The network edition includes features such as Express Track, Networked Music Sharing and Cue Prefix on Export.

Filed under: gaming, software, Apple
Other story tags: review, Web traffic, promo