Cyber Bandwidth Monitor does pretty much exactly what you'd expect it to do, and more. This little WIndows utility tracks your upload and download speeds over time and plots your network activity on a little graph. The utility grabs data once per second, but you can adjust the settings so that it refreshes more frequently. You can also tweak a ton of display settings, ranging from the font and window size to the graph scale.
In addition to real-time information, the program also logs all of your activity over time and can send you daily, weekly, or monthly updates. Cyber Bandwidth Monitor also has a few other useful features, like built in Ping and Traceroute utilities.
Brad Fitzpatrick, the developer responsible for Livejournal and OpenID is up to it again. This time, he let us know on the Google Code blog, that the API for Social Graph is now available.
Social Graph is an API that functions like a Pagerank for social relationships. The idea is that when you join a new social network you don't have to manually add previous relationships because it can populate your list based on your connections from other networks, your blog, or the web.
Social Graph works by indexing sites that use the XFN (XHTML Friends Network) and FOAF (Friend Of A Friend) open standards in order to gauge relationships between people.
Zingku is a mobile social network. Simply put, the service gives users the ability to send and receive text and picture messages between friends. It is a way for trusted friends to send invitations using the standard text messaging service that is available on all mobile devices. The service is also available on the web.
Originally starting up in 2005 and only available in the US, Zingku was in a private beta before being acquired by Google. Now the service is locked down to new users until the full acquisition arrangements have gone through. A price for the acquisition was not disclosed.
Pretty much every TV network and its sister offers up a way to watch popular shows for free online. Just hop on over to a network website and you'll find a way to watch recent episodes of everything from Heroes to Girlfriends. The episodes are typically free, but include advertising. And not an assortment of commercials like you get on broadcast TV. No, we're talking about a single ad which plays about 8 times per episode. Not that we have a problem with the repeated redundant repetition of a sponsor's message.
You can also download many of the same shows for a fee from services like iTunes and Amazon Unbox. But NBC is preparing to launch a new service that's a combination of the two. NBC Direct will let you download videos to your computer for free. They'll include advertising, and you'll only be able to watch for up to a week after a program's original air date. But you can download a video and watch it on the go when you don't have an active internet connection. No buffering needed. It actually sounds a bit like the BBC's iPlayer.
The move is a little surprising. Or at least the timing is. NBC recently announced that it was terminating its contract to sell movies through Apple's iTunes service. But the company struck a deal to offer shows through Amazon Unbox. The new download service could eat into revenue from Unbox video sales. Perhaps the network is hoping that advertising can be more profitable than video sales.
NBC is also working with News Corp to launch a new online video service called Hulu. While it's not entirely clear whether Hulu will feature full length episodes or just video clips and exclusive content, it now seems like NBC is a bit all over the place when it comes to its streaming/downloadable media strategy. But since nobody quite knows what the future holds for the medium, maybe it's not a bad idea to have all the bases covered.
What do you do if you have the phrase, "helped create the internet" on your resume? Start a networking company of course.
An original team member who helped create the Internet, Arpanet, has launched a new hardware company designed to take advantage of next generation IP services. Larry Roberts' new company, Anagram has developed a hardware device designed for next generation video, voice and data called the Flow Router. This device can eliminate performance issues on network applications such as VoIP and IPTV. Anagram can guarantee the quality of video, voice and speed of downloads through the Router by using Behavioral Traffic Control to prohibit traffic from using a specific share of resources running on the network.
The Anagram FR-1000 Flow Router has been testing in corporate network environments and is currently on the market.
It was only a little while ago that Zoho got into the Facebook game and offered up its applications inside of accounts. Now it seems like so many other companies have also developed their own Facebook applications, mainly because Facebook is the social place to be.
Another recent leader in the race to Facebook is DivShare. They have jumped on board and added the ability to send documents, photos, music and videos to friends in Facebook. With the DivShare Facebook application users can choose to send files to individuals, post them in profiles or add them to news feeds. It's an easy way to share files to people in a network.
The application can be found at http://apps.facebook.com/divshare/ , with accounts having unlimited storage space. There is a 200MB file size cap when uploading.
Social networks are obviously where it's at, and the more niche and targeted they can get, all the better for users. Its now time for clothes lovers to unite with this latest network.
Trendmill is the newest member to hit the fashion social network scene. Users can upload images of clothes they wish to own, as well as clothes they do own. Trendmillers can then vote and rate on other user's clothes giving them the thumbs up or down while they search for the next in thing. Brands are also represented here with their lines with users rating and ranking them, a good marketing tool to gauge what customers are fond of. Trendmill also features some fashion editorial content and links out to fashion in the news.
Other sites in the fashion social network scene are Iqons and StyleHive.
The instant messaging application isn't even available to the public yet, and it's being integrated into social networks.
It didn't take someone long to wrap up Pownce and integrate it into Facebook using the developers API, but its here and ready to use. Jake Jarvis didn't sweat it out too much when developing this add on, and now those Facebook users that have been lucky enough to score a Pownce invite can post and display their updates on their Facebook page, publish stories in their News Feed and Mini Feeds and place a Pownce box in their user profiles.
Pownce for Facebook can be installed here. To sign up for a Pownce invite you can enter your email here, or hit up all your friends and ask who is already in the network.
We have covered Jangl in the past, their unique service enables users to communicate with anyone through phone lines, without revealing phone numbers.
Jangl widgets came out a short while ago, and now the team has announced a partnership with Tagged, a social network that has been quickly been climbing the ranks and currently has over 40 million members. So needless to say, now members of this site can easily communicate while keeping their privacy and preserving their anonymity. Tagged will utilize the Jangl widget, enabling users to generate private phone numbers in which they can exchange with Tagged friends and contacts they wish to communicate with by voice.
Keep your eye on Jangl. They aren't a giant company yet, but are on the forefront of social communications. Their services add a tremendous amount of value to those wishing to communicate, but still want to remain anonymous.
One thing that tends to take a while in the Web 2.0 market is the expansion to non-English speaking markets. Even Google is guilty of waiting a while to open up services for non-English speaking residents of the world.
Piczo, the social network that specializes in the teen market, has finally expanded to include other languages. The second place superstar in the social space for teens now has international versions for users in Germany, France and Spain.
It's a move that hasn't come soon enough for the over 1.2 million users in Germany alone. Piczo's current user base is approx. 25 million users worldwide.
Social networks are all over now, covering every space imaginable. Are there too many? Oh ya! But it looks like there is always room for one more niche idea.
Onwards with another portal, Pingsta is a small new niche social network that aims to bring geeks together. They are in an invite only mode, but are up and running, so ask around to colleagues if you want an invite.
Pingsta aims at becoming the place that brings all internet experts together, specifically the elite members. Giving the internetwork experts a space to collaborate, connect and share experience and expertise. The Pingsta interface closely resembles Facebook. A clean design, with a space for your own personal profile, and forums for asking questions and sharing.
Hot off the presses; Yahoo keeps trucking along with its mobileannouncements, this time they take aim at publishers wanting to enter the mobile market.
In continuing its mobile success streak, Yahoo is now looking for Publishers interested in providing mobile content. The newly launched Yahoo! Mobile Publisher Services is a suite of services that helps publishers increases the distribution and monetization of their content on mobile devices. The goal of this service is to deliver tools to advertisers and publishers that help them enable the growth of the mobile internet to benefit consumers. By joining, publishers will have access to the Yahoo! Mobile Ad Network, Mobile Content Engine, Mobile Media Directory and the Mobile Site Submit.
The Yahoo! Mobile Ad Network will enable publishers to serve syndicated advertising in mobile content, in a variety of formats including video, in game placements and sponsored links.
An innovative tool that Yahoo has come up with is the Yahoo! Mobile Content Engine. This will allow publishers who do not have a mobile site, the ability to create mobile content to distribute on mobile devices efficiently and effectively.
The Mobile Media Directory will make it easy for publishers to make their mobile media accessible through Yahoo's oneSearch, by submitting their list of products for review by Yahoo, who will then rank and review it.
Mobile Site Submit, like a regular web site submit, will allow mobile publishers the ability to provide information on their mobile site with a description and tags to ensure proper indexing in Yahoo oneSearch.
Talk about growth, Yahoo has been taking the mobile application world by storm lately. We will be following this one closely to see how Yahoo!'s Mobile Publisher Services really does help out publishers.
UPDATE: I took out the underlines, and replaced with bold. Sorry Jeffrey, my bad.
How would you like to cuddle up to a secure online space that has the potential to help out your business with some valuable document, project and team tools?
Huddle is based off of a social networking model, without being just another social network. It allows users to network via secure online spaces combining tools that create a professional feel client service portal. Teams can come together with customers to plan out projects and documents, and collaborate on ideas.
A unique dashboard provides an overview of all activities, tasks, and documents that are awaiting review. When viewing projects, users can instantly see who's online, and the progression of projects. There is also a handy calendar that displays upcoming tasks and overdue activities.
Huddle's online tools include:
Document sharing - Documents can be uploaded for approval, revisions and version tracking.
Project planning - Projects can be planned, with tasks assigned, and progress tracked through a filing cabinet.
Idea generation - Ideas can be written down on a whiteboard, and to-do lists can be created.
Working together - Teams can gather together and get to know each other better by chatting and reading through bios and personal pages.
Huddle provides three main package solutions that are determined by number of users, file sizes, and monthly fees. Freelancers can enjoy a (converted from UK pound sterling) $10 U.S./month rate, while small businesses can expect to dish out $22 U.S./month to connect teams, suppliers, partners and clients.
What Friendster and Facebook have done with personal social networking, Socializr hopes to accomplish with event planning. Socializr was created by the founder of Friendster and a player in the social networking phenomenon, so it does have its similarities. A private test has been running since September 2006, with the live launch occurring last Friday.
Socializr is a free online service for people who want to start or share event and party information between friends and contacts. When setting up an account you can import contacts from a ton of sources (Friendster, MySpace, Flickr, Yelp, Evite, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, Gmail, Outlook or CSV). Setting up an event is relatively easy, choose a pre designed Socializr invite for a number of events including weddings, clubbing, Christmas party, birthdays, births, sweet 16's, graduations, and dinner parties, or design your own. Enter your events information and invite away! ( dont' forget the event date, time, location, and details).
Microsoft is tapping the social network phenomenon by starting up one of their own. This financial social network will focus on finance professionals, and be targeted towards career roles. By the sounds of things, this financial site could be based of the current Microsoft Live pages idea where users get their own personal blog area with the addition of forums, and on Microsoft Dynamics Live.
I know what you're saying. Oh no, not another social network started by a big tech company, and that's exactly what our thoughts are. With Reuters having announced their financial network set to berecently, we could see a full on financial social network war. However, companies like Microsoft do have built in following already, so the potential impact this network could have in a short amount of time could be quite high.
Could Microsoft announce new communities for sales, marketing, operations, HR, and IT fields later this year?
Cyber Bandwidth Monitor does pretty much exactly what you'd expect it to do, and more. This little WIndows utility tracks your upload and download speeds over time and plots your network activity on a little graph. The utility grabs data once per second, but you can adjust the settings so that it refreshes more frequently. You can also tweak a ton of display settings, ranging from the font and window size to the graph scale.
Hot off the presses; Yahoo keeps trucking along with its 
