Last week, Apple confirmed many speculations of the release of a computing tablet after announcing the launch of the Apple iPad. In wake of the news, social media felt a massive influx of iPad related posts, tweets, mashups as Apple endured praise and criticism from all over the world. Here’s a look at the social media buzz surrounding the iPad:

Activity surged on the day Steve Jobs unveiled his precious new product and nearly 400,000 bits of content were generated on the interweb on this day alone!

Apple must be doing something right upsizing the iTouch because people seem to be really into this new product. Without even getting a chance to sample the actual device, 75% of social media references have been positive.

Here we see a word analysis that shows the to terms associated with each sentiment. “Lack” was the most popular negative term and it seems that the deficiency of the usual computing features and abilities (can someone say Flash?) really tickled some nerves.

This is what it looks like to put all iPab conversations into a word cloud. Here you see that Steve Jobs was a big part of the chatter as were alleged product features. So here it is, straight from the horses mouths. People dig the iPad. Are you going to get one?

On the heels of Apple’s Sept. 9 Rock and Roll event, we decided to analyze conversation share around some of the big announcements.

The Nano made big news at the event with the announcement of its new built in camera, 2.2-inch display, Genius mix capability and built-in FM radio.

The iPod Classic increased capacity to 160GB while keeping the price the same at $249.

The iPod Touch was advertised as the most affordable gateway to the App Store at $229, with no monthly fees. The keynote called the Touch Apple’s fastest growing product line and highlighted its gaming and pocket computing capability.

Apple also highlighted iTunes 9, which includes Genius mixes, home sharing, iTunes LP and a redesigned store layout.

We used Social Radar to measure share of voice for the following words within coversations about “iPod” within the last month: Touch, Nano, Classic, Shuffle, iPhone, Zune and iTunes.

Conversation around Nano spiked dramatically following the announcements, but Touch still holds the highest share among iPod conversations online.

iPhone and Touch hold the largest percentage of posts within the last 30 days at approximately 30% each, with Nano and iTunes each under 10%.