Microsoft has gone all out and has started doling out the next generation of its blogging service – Windows Live Spaces. With a major update of this kind, Microsoft hopes to take the competition up a few notches with other social networking juggernauts such as MySpace.

The service will now include social networking features that would allow users to personalize their spaces with gadgets. Also, Microsoft has launched the Windows Live Toolbar, the Windows Live QnA beta and has announced the releases of enhanced safety services in the coming weeks.

The new service will allow users to customize their site with blogs, photos and music lists. Windows Live Spaces is designed to connect users to their real social network of friends — people in their Windows Live Contacts list — that is integrated across Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and other services — and introduce them to people through these trusted contacts. Users under 18 can only be contacted by those in their Messenger contact list.

There are several features that have been incorporated including a permissions feature that would let users decide how and who can contact them, through their Spaces site. These permissions would be shown beside a user's profile, and can be changed.

I have never ever heard of a public transport system launching a podcast series! I came across a blog posting on Micro Persuasion that said that the New York City subway system’s Metropolitan Transit Authority had launched a series of podcasts for its 130 million monthly riders.

The podcasts would cover topics on safety tips, service advisories, special travel deals and interviews with guests. It’s a given that there are plenty of iPod-carrying users in New York and this is an extremely innovative way to get across messages and entertain the passengers of the NYC transit system. Impressive, I say!

Read the blog post here.

Jeff Taylor, the founder of job site monster.com, has launched another online property called eons.com. The new website is a social networking website for Americans aged 50-plus. Great! Another social networking website! So what? The new entrant into the online social networking scene comes in with a “deadly” twist.

The site sports an online obituary database that sends out alerts when someone you may know dies and that plans to set up a do-it-yourself funeral service, reports Reuters. “The death business is growing,” Taylor told Reuters, offering figures showing the number of deaths in the US rose to 2.4 million in 2005 from 2.2 million in 2000, and was projected to rise to 4.1 million by 2040.

Besides this feature, the site sports interactive games to build brain strength, news on entertainment and hobbies for older people, a personalized longevity calculator and tips to live longer. It also has a nationwide database of obituaries dating back to the 1930s to which people can add photos and comments.

Users will receive an alert when someone from a particular area dies or in response to pre-defined keywords such as a company or school name.

Microsoft Live Labs has released a technology preview of Photosynth, an application that can turn two-dimensional images into three-dimensional landscapes. The application is so cool that the word cool would have to be redefined.

From the sound of it, Photosynth seems like a fairy tale story getting into the realm of reality. The folks at Photosynth seem very confident of the potential offering and say that it "will change the way you think about digital photos forever".

What does Photosynth do?
Simply, Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space. With this data, users can walk or fly through a scene, zoom in and out, see where different photos were taken in relation to one another and find similar photos to the one you are viewing. A photo is analyzed to intricately highlight many distinctive features - that could range from paintings on a wall to a fly on a table!

It doesn’t stop here. The application is so mind boggling, it’s like an adrenaline rush just reading about it. While processing an image, Photosynth will create a point cloud that gives the image a unique identifier, a DNA-like profile that describes the features that have been recognised in the image. With this ‘Image DNA’, Photosynth could show other photos that have similar features to the one currently being viewed.

Also, the folks at Photosynth talk about annotations, tags, or even URLs being applied to an image and transferred to similar images. And this would enable Photosynth to connect your photographs into a seamless web of images and information, allowing users to browse a virtual universe of interconnected scenes that constantly evolves and changes over time.

The application hasn’t been made available as yet (Darn it!), but you can console yourself by having a look at the video and read up on the team blog.

Beat that YouTube! Flixya, a San Francisco based company, have launched their online video-sharing offering. And guess what!? These blokes have a really cool revenue (sharing) model. They split their profits with the user. Can’t believe what you are reading? Read on then!

Flixya’s revenue sharing program is a new concept that is raising a lot of eyebrows. The program offers users a 50-50 split if they submit content from YouTube, Metacafe, Daily Motion, Google Video, and other sites that offer embedded Flash players. Users need to just paste the required code in the box, add titles, tags and a description and submit. The revenue system uses Google Adsense and an in-house ad publishing system.

"It is has been rewarding to develop a community for connecting people with engaging and entertaining videos." And like YouTube, the next phase of Flixya includes the ability to upload videos in addition to sharing videos from around the Internet. "By the time we are out of Beta, we'll have a targeted user base that can upload video just like YouTube. However, our focus at this point in time, is to aggregate content from the 200 existing video sites and build our core audience." says Adam Oliver, Co-founder, Flixya.

There are two revenue programs that users can opt for:

REWARDS PROGRAM:
In the Rewards Program, points are awarded for referring new users (15 points), sharing a video (10 points) or adding a comment (3 points). These can be exchanged for prizes like a MacBook Pro, an iPod Nano, a Canon Digital Rebel XT, an Apple 20″ cinema display, an Xbox 360, a Sidekick 3, a Sony PSP, a Creative Zen MP3 player or a $100 gift card.

And this is just bait. The cheapest item costs 30,000 points (SUCKA!!!).

CHARITY PROGRAM:
If you have a heart and you aren’t in for the green, the Charity Program is for you. Instead of taking all the Google earning you earn for yourself, you can donate to charity (read Lance Armstrong Foundation and World Vision). It isn’t clearly mentioned how much Flixya donates to these charities, but they do donate.

"Flixya is proud to be fundamentally built on the foundation that encourages its members to share everything," says co-founder Ivan Wong "Online video is an engaging platform and an untapped audience for advocating awareness of charitable causes." The Flixya charity program features an opt-in contribution of 50% of member-generated ad revenue. "We are excited about our growing list of charities that we support and look forward to contributing to local, national and international causes."

The face of journalism is changing these days. You don’t have to be a professional journalist to get your story published or viewed. Journalism media houses are eager to get their readers/viewers to help unearth stories, click pictures and take videos that they (journalism media houses) wouldn’t be able to unearth under normal circumstances.

To this effect, CNN has unveiled a page on CNN.com that opens up the online news giant to article, video, and picture submissions. Called CNN Exchange, the section on CNN’s website aims to place its mark on the “user-generated content” arena, especially with viral video sites that fill up with video clips that capture essential moments from stories in the headlines.

Mitch Gelman, senior vp and executive producer of CNN.com, was quoted saying, "User-generated content has the potential to play a pivotal role in journalism whether it's online or offline. With CNN Exchange, we've essentially created a one-stop shop for CNN.com users to share their contributions with other Internet users."

CNN, in the past has had to turn to sites such as YouTube and the like to source videos for its newscasts. With CNN Exchange in place, the network hopes to have users coming to them rather than CNN going to YouTube.

I read about these guys quite a while back and I have to admit, these chaps have it all – from t-shirts to pens to (ahem) booze parties! I’m talking about Valleyschwag.

Who the heck / what the hell is Valleyschwag?
In their words, “Out here in the Valley (Silicon Valley, that is) we're well known for cookin' up a mean tech company. But our real legacy is our schwag--the t-shirts, ballcaps, notepads, stickers, keychains, and other booty blaring, the slogans that create new industries (and sometimes landfill, sorry to say). Until now, these world-class collectibles have only been available to the elite few who make it to conventions and insider parties. Now you can have a little piece of the valley without the $3000 rent and two hour commute.

Valleyschwag is a powerful new medium for renegade tech companies and organizations to make a big impact on just the right people. We've built a large and vital community of enthusiasts in the U.S. and around the world who want to be the first to hear about your innovation, and the first to tell their friends. With any luck they'll blog about it, wear your t-shirts and pins, and emblazen stickers on their laptops.”

How does Valleyschwag work?
Well, you really want one of those “Byte me” t-shirts and you just have to get your hands on that Google keychain, right? If you sign up with these blokes for a month, they will charge you $14.95 and will send you a collectible every month. No repeats. The package prices can vary $14.95 to about $20 for a collectible – inclusive of shipping – way cheaper for something that you wouldn’t ordinarily get at a collectible store.

I loved the enthusiastic vibe you get from the site and it just makes you feel that this place is where you can get a lot of stuff and get all “geared” up – valley style!

Could it be possible that YouTube founder, Chad Hurley would want to have an initial public offering? MarketWatch's Steve Gelsi reports that Chad might just want to have one!

In an interview on MarketWatch, Chad was quoted as saying, “If we have an opportunity to go public in the future that would be very exciting for us." And in the interview he also brushed aside rumors that the value of YouTube jumped to $1 billion from $600 million.

There’s a familiar adage that goes as still waters run deep and YouTube’s ideas on an IPO could be a classic example of the adage. Maybe Chad isn’t keen on selling YouTube to a top bidder (for say, a billion dollars or more) and might want more money for matter with an IPO.

But then, Chad contradicts this kind of speculation by saying that YouTube is focusing on experimenting with banner and text-based advertising as it generates revenue and is building on its sales team.

So, will we see a YouTube IPO in the future (near future that is) or will YouTube follow Google’s footsteps and become a healthy and commercially profitable venture and then hit the IPO highway?

Read the MarketWatch interview, here.

Microsoft's MSN website is to make every episode of US sitcom “Arrested Development” available for free until 2009. Microsoft and FOX have reached an agreement that would give Microsoft exclusive rights to stream the entire three-season run of the cult favorite comedy "Arrested Development" on the MSN website.

The sitcom was canned because it wasn’t considered commercially viable enough to be re-commissioned. According to reports, this is the first time a major studio, such as FOX, has sold syndication rights to a web portal. MSN intend to stream the serial with display and video advertising. The revenue generated from the advertising will be split between Microsoft and FOX.

Rob Bennett, MSN's general manager of entertainment and video services was quoted as saying "The beauty of distributing an entire series online - especially a series like Arrested where the audience is so passionate - is that we can build an immersive world around the show. We want to build something where the fans will feel at home. This is a very large deal for us."

Microsoft intend to build an immersive and interactive offering, per say, around “Arrested Development”, something that would get users to get involved with the show rather than just download them off MSN.

“Arrested Development” is about the Bluth family, who are corrupt, incompetent but strangely successful. Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman), who plays the character of the eldest son in the serial, has to manage keeping his dysfunctional family functioning while keeping afloat the family’s Orange County development company. The show received critical raves but still managed to maintain a small but loyal fan base.

In an end to a legal battle that couldn’t get any more dramatic than it already is, Kazaa, a file-sharing software developer, have reached a legal settlement with the music and movie industries.

Under the terms of the deal, Kazaa's owner Sharman Networks will pay the world's four major music companies -- Universal Music, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner Music -- more than $100 million (54 million pounds) and commit to going legitimate, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

The settlement will settle two suits, one in Australia, wherein a judge had already ruled that the company breached copyright; and another in California, wherein Kazaa creators Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis (inventors for Skype) were named as co-defendants.

This will be a symbolic victory more than a commercial one for the music and movie industry. Kazaa was known to be the music/video pirate of sorts earlier, but today, new technologies have come along and have replaced it - legally. This time, Kazaa’s settlement will be the red beacon for other “pirates” to be aware off.