Facebook Chat?????

Facebook Chat is Coming… in 2 Weeks!!

By Steve Gebhardt - Seton Hall U.

Facebook is set to launch a highly anticipated chat feature in the next 2 weeks to allow for real time communication within the popular social network.

The program will sit at the bottom of the page showing open chat windows and number of friends online. The user can pop out the entire chat interface into a separate window to show online friend lists and current conversations which is similar to Gchat’s Gtalk feature (see screen capture to the right). The users will be able to throw online/offline status easily which is a similar feature to Away Messages in AIM. Users will also be able to clear their chat history and they “online” status will appear throughout the site.

All-in-all it’s a major upgrade for Facebook but let the backlash begin from users who feel Facebook is pushing the instant communication envelope too far.

Ex-Googlers Launch rentBits.com - Vertical Search for Rentals

rentBits.com today announced the beta launch of its rental search engine, offering renters one place to find available rental homes, condos and apartments.

rentBits helps users make sense of the millions of bits of rental housing data and information that reside on the web. Using advanced search technology, rentBits crawls the web to provide users with an index of single family home, condo and apartment for rent listings from major rental sites, associations and property management websites.

In addition to improving the online search experience for rental properties, rentBits also offers:

• Intuitive and clean search design
• No login requirements
• New rental search technology
• Comprehensive listings
• Speed and accuracy
• Daily listing updates

The rentBits executive team brings search and advertising expertise to the online rental space. Dan Daugherty (CEO) and Tim Moynihan (COO) come from Google and Dariusz Rakowicz (CTO) has extensive experience developing technology and search platforms for the hotel industry.

"While at Google, we learned to develop products that were simple to use, free for users, and clean of annoying advertising," says Dan Daugherty, President and CEO. "rentBits has all of these qualities and this beta release is just the beginning. We will continue to innovate so we can provide the best rental search experience for our users."

rentBits' business is advertising-based and provides a platform for property managers, real estate investors and agents to reach renters while they are actively searching for rental properties.

For more information, or to search for a rental home or apartment, visit http://www.rentbits.com/. Read about or comment on updated rentBits news and observations in the rental industry at rentBits' corporate blog at http://www.rentbits.com/blog.

Price Spurs Demand for Triple-Play’s

Bear Stearns Finds Consumers View Services As Commodities By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 3/6/2008 2:53:00 PM

Price is the key factor driving demand for video, broadband and voice services, according to consumer research conducted by Bear Stearns.

“Our survey finds that users continue to view these services as ‘commodity-like’ with price the primary driver of demand,” the Wall Street firm said in a report by analyst Spencer Wang.

For its 2008 Communications Survey, Bear Stearns surveyed nearly 1,000 consumers.

“Consistent with our prior work, our survey finds that across all three products categories, price is the top factor affecting demand,” Wang wrote. “This implies that consumers view communication services as fairly ‘commodity-like,’ and that as competition rises, pricing power may wane. However, we still expect rational pricing given the oligopoly structure of the industry, although average revenue per user growth will likely slow going forward with more competition.”

Click here for the full story.

McCartney to release Beatles back catalog on iTunes

By Jonathan Brown

Saturday, 8 March 2008

It may be almost 38 years since they officially split but the ability of all things Beatles to shake the world continues unabated.

If proof were needed, reports yesterday that Sir Paul McCartney had given the go-ahead for the Fab Four's back catalog to be made available on iTunes and other digital download services "within months" made front-page news and set fans' internet chat rooms buzzing.

Official "no comments" that anything was imminent from both Apple Corps, owners of the Beatles' legacy, and Apple, the creator of iTunes, which dismissed suggestions as "rumour and speculation," could do little to dampen the excitement.

Click here for the entire story.

CBS RADIO Signs Exclusive Agreement to Power AOL Radio, One of the Nation's Most Listened to Online Radio Networks

More Than 150 CBS RADIO Music, News, Talk and Sports Stations Will Now Be Available To AOL Audiences Newly Created Player With Greater Functionality And Program Choices To Launch Later This Spring

CBS RADIO and AOL today announced a ground breaking partnership whereby CBS RADIO will power AOL Radio (http://radio.aol.com), combining two of the largest online radio networks and giving millions of listeners unlimited and free access to the most diverse lineup of programming available. Additionally, the two companies will work together to create a number of product enhancements including a new player, as well as complete support for the Mac.

Once AOL Radio's stations are integrated into its operations, CBS RADIO will drive advertising sales for AOL's more than 200 award winning stations in addition to its own online streams of more than 150 radio stations and custom channels.

Comcast’s Blast service - Doubling its Broadband Speed

Comcast has achieved its competitive edge by offering Blast, a new tier of broadband Internet service which allows for the 16 Mbps downloads. That’s nearly twice the speed of its own Performance Plus service which averages 10 megabits per second. Speeds for uploads are also increasing from 768 kilobits per second to 2 Mbps. AT&T plans to counter Comcast’s new service by offering its own service upgrade later this year.
Speeds up to 100 Mbps Planned in the Future

Comcast intends to further upgrade its broadband speed through a new standard called Docsis 3.0 which may deliver download speeds up to 100 Mbps by the end of the year. The technology may eventually allow for download speeds as high as 160 Mbps.