We know that Facebook is moving at lighting speed to stay 20 steps ahead of the social networking game. Here’s a couple of other features that Facebook has in the works to do just that:

The ability to sort your friends and organize them into groups is an upcoming feature that nicely aligns with the objectives and functionality of Facebook. This will allow you to better determine who sees what kind of content, and simply offers more privacy options within your personal networks.

Another upcoming feature is the ability to read email messages in digest form, which means you can receive one single email with all of your notifications, sent to you on a daily basis. These are small tweaks, but good tweaks nonetheless. MySpace, Xing and Friendster have been modifying their profile pages for the better as well.

Sam Sethi at Blognation UK has a scoop: apparently, he got a preview of a new instant messaging app for Facebook — and according to his description, it doesn’t require you to download or install anything, or to register, as many Facebook apps do. You just sign in and use it. At the risk of sounding like a Facebook fan-boy, despite the ugly interface I think this could be huge.

I think it could be good not only for Facebook, which has been missing real-time chat — making do with messages and “wall” posts — but for instant messaging as a whole. Like Sam, I see it as a way of doing an end-run around the fact that you still need multiple IM clients to chat with all of your friends, who might be using Yahoo or AIM or MSN or Skype or GTalk

“No more MSN, AIM, GTalk, Yahoo chat — one instant messenger for all your friends.” All your friends who are on Facebook, of course. Still, it sounds like a pretty good solution to a Balkanized IM environment. And it could stand to make Facebook even stickier than it already is.

We heard last week that WordPress would be launching a new release today. Well, it’s here. Tagging and tag clouds are now available for WordPress bloggers. There’s also the new update notification feature that lets you know when there’s a new release for WordPress, or when any other plug-ins you have get an update as well.

There’s also the cleaning up of URLs, which redirects post with changed slugs so links won’t go bad, redirects URLs that get cut off in emails, and more. This particular feature should help you with SEO as well. Be sure to check it out. See here for more WordPress resources and tools. Download the new version..

Bill Gates ranked tops (surprise!) in Forbes’ newest list of the top 400 richest Americans with a commanding $59 billion. Half of the ten wealthiest earned their billions from the tech industry.Among those that made the $1.3 billion cutoff were five Googlers (GOOG), including employee #12 Omid Kordestani and early investor Ram Shriram. Three of Silicon Valley’s most influential VCs made the super rich list:  Kleiner Perkins” L. John Doerr and Vinod Khosla and Sequoia Capital’s Michael Moritz. The Valley’s most revered entrepreneur, Steve Jobs (APPL), made the No. 56 slot with $5.7 billion.
But striking it rich through tech is still a small and elite business. Just 10 percent of those on the list make their billions that way. Compare that to nearly 5 percent who make money by inheriting it. Here’s a look at the ten richest tech titans and their staggering net worth.

Blog Rush is a blog syndication network. It works around a widget that the blogger needs to put in his website, and the widget displays headlines coming from the blogs on the network.

The goal of service is straight forward: to give you more traffic and readers.

There have been many similar services in the past, but Blog Rush is introducing some interesting innovations. First of all you earn “syndication credits” every time the widget is loaded on your website (i.e., one credit for each page view). If your blog has 500 daily page views, your headlines will be displayed on other blogs using the widget 500 times daily.

Secondly, you can also earn credits by referring people. Every time the widget is displayed on the blog of your referrals you will also earn one credit. So early adopters will be rewarded – Get it now!!

Recently Apple introduced the iPod Touch. It’s essentially an iPhone without the phone gizmos, and without the speakers and built-in microphone. $299 buys you an 8GB sytem, complete with all the iPhone-like touchy goodness you’ve come to know and want. $399 buys you a 16 GB model with which is still relatively small storage for a media player.

The iTouch includes built-in WiFi so you can use Safari and YouTube on-the-go as well as make purchases from the iTunes Store. (the iPhone will offer the same ability later this month). Its main button bar offers direct access to Music (great icon), Videos (ugly icon) and Photos (same old icon), as well as the new iTunes WiFi store.

The specifications as listed on Apple’s website are:

* Screen material: glass
* Screen size: 8.9 cm (3.5 in)
* Screen resolution: 480×320 pixels at 163 ppi
* Input method: Multi-touch screen interface
* Operating System: OS X
* Storage: 8 or 16 GB Flash memory
* Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g)
* Built-in rechargeable, non-removable battery with up to 5 hours of video playback, and up to 22 hours of audio playback
* Size: 110×61.8×8 mm (4.3×2.4×0.31 in)
* Weight: 120 g (4.2 oz)

The iPod touch has a lower amount of storage space, compared to the lower-priced flagship iPod classic, due to flash memory limitations.

More photos and video clip after the jump Read the rest of this entry »

Yahoo’s rumored social network, dubbed “Mash,” has arrived. The company started inviting people outside the company to test it on Friday, the company says in a blog.

Mash is different from other social networks in that you can start profiles for your friends and “open” your own profile to friends you trust, according to the Mash blog. What that means, exactly, is still a bit unclear. You can also reportedly customize your profile or friends’ profiles with other apps, ala Facebook.

“One last note before you jump in: Mash is still pretty raw–there are bugs and we haven’t gotten to several of the features it really should have. We need to hear from you about where to focus our efforts,” writes Will Aldrich, the head of Mash.

“Mash appears to (be) Yahoo’s way of saying adieu to its existing social network, Yahoo 360, but no word yet on whether the company will actually be shutting down 360,” the post says.

More social networking news

More screen shots after the jump
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Nielsen/NetRatings has released online traffic data for social networking, blogs, and video sites dating from August 2006 to August 2007. The report indicated a 117%, 19 million unique users, traffic growth for Facebook and a lagging, albeit still strong, MySpace growth of a 23% pace of 60 million. In the video sites ratings report, MySpace videos dropped 6%, while YouTube gained 66% and Veoh soared 346%. Has all the spam and glitter graphics finally caused a traffic jam at MySpace?

An interesting item to note in the blog statistics is that the entertainment blog TMZ actually draws more unique visitors than major blogging communities comprised of millions of users such as LiveJournal and Xanga.

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• Chat on MSN while you XBOX!

I’ve had an idea for this kind of list for quite some time now, but I guess I’ve been waiting until we have clear and well-defined players rather than something we insiders consider successful but is really unknown to the rest of the local web space.

I’ve tried to diversify the list with startups doing things in different markets, and while this is a list of the most promising startups they are by no means the best but are looking toward a bright future. If I missed out on any please share your insight in the comments area. In no particular order:

Amatomu is an aggregator of South African blogs with a ranking system based on page views and inbound links. The aggregator also features various widgets to integrate Amatomu functionality into your blog.

Founded by Vincent Maher and Matthew Buckland from M&G

Modelbase is an online portfolio hosting website for South African models and photographers. Sort of an online modeling agency to view and contact South Africa’s best photography and modeling talent.

Founded by Freestyle Labs

Synthasite is an browser based AJAX website construction tool that allows you to assemble your website from any PC. The application features many widgets and templates to choose from enabling any novice web designer to create professional web properties.

Founded by Vinny Lingham from Incubeta

Blueworld is an social network which allows you to create your own profile and express yourself through blogs, videos and photos which aggregates on your profile and in various sub areas of the network. Sort of South Africa’s Myspace, Blueworld also features clubbing photos from around South Africa including foreign destinations such as London and Germany.

Founded by Brent Brooks, Bradley Voges and Charl Norman

Afrigator is the second aggregator on this list but has a unique hook focusing on blogs in the Africa internet name space. Afrigator is Africa’s first social media aggregator with content channels from Nigeria to Uganda.

Founded by Mike Stopforth, Justin Hartman, Stiaan Pretorius and Mark Forrester (Some jumped on board later in the project’s live)

Zoopy is one of the first photo and video sharing networks in South Africa featuring numerous channels from politics to humor.

Founded by Jason Elk and co

One of the first social media startups to come out of South Africa, Muti is a social bookmarking site inspired by reddit and Digg but dedicated to content of interest to Africans or those interested in Africa.

Founded/headed up by Neville Newey and Dave Duarte

The Vottle project allows you to network online, to buy and sell goods, and it enables you seek out other like-minded people. Vottle can be described as an online classifieds or a community service. With many ad listings in numerous categories and a useful sms service Vottle has become one of the leading online classifieds destinations in SA.

Founded by Greg de Chasteauneuf, Ronnie Apteker, Andrew Murray, Colin Peterson, Justin Spratt, Richard van Katwijk and Gus MacRobert

iBlog is a blogging community where anyone can register and create their own blog. Showcasing thousands of bloggers, iBlog is the biggest independent blogging community in the dot coza name space.

Founded by Mark Garbers

AmaGama, another project out of the M&G stable, is a blogging community where anyone can register and create their own WordPress blog and post podcasts.

Founded by Vincent Maher and Matthew Buckland

Zoopedup is an automotive social network that allows you to create an online garage for your car featuring blogging, video and picture sharing, discussion forums, ride battles and event galleries from around the globe.

Founded by Charl Norman

My Video is the second video sharing platform in this list and claims to also be the first of its kind in South Africa. Featuring all the characteristics of a video sharing site groups, channels and off course videos.

Founded/Run by Rowan Polovin, Tristan Owen and Michael Salzwedel

MyGenius allows users to promote themselves, build relationships and possibly collaborate with others. The focus of MyGenius is to give individuals a space to showcase their skills, brand themselves and share their ideas.

Founded by John Raath and Doug Timberlake

Freelancentral is a hub for talented freelancers to pitch for projects posted by employers.

Founded by Jo Duxbury

iJol allows you to scan through a summary of all kinds of events happening in your area, and even to see which of your buddies are planning on attending. The site also allows you to plan and post events while creating a profile (myJol) of events you will/have attended.

Read the rest of this entry »

While it was supposed to be Britney Spears’ comeback performance, MTV.com was the big winner after the falling star’s abysmal performance at the channel’s annual Video Music Awards.

The music site saw its traffic surge to record numbers as people visited to watch the ‘trainwreck‘ in action. MTV.com logged 2.6 million visitors on Sunday (remember the awards were held at night, so that wasn’t even a full day), making it the site’s highest-trafficked day ever. The following day the numbers reached a staggering 7 million streams.