I know we have all heard about social networking online and everyone’s favourite web site, My Space, but what about Wallop? Another offering from Microsoft, Wallop is a research project focussed on online social interaction that aims to explore how people build conversations and share media online. With a revolutionary new “point and click” interface, Wallop is the first social networking site that integrates a marketplace, where people (called Modders) can create and sell Flash, there is no banner advertising and you don’t even need to know HTML to make your profile look good! Sounds great, where do I sign up? Err sorry, the other thing about Wallop is it’s so exclusive you have to wait for an invite.

Microsoft’s new technology “Deepfish” was revealed at the eTech Conference this week. A new mobile web browsing technology, Deepfish has been designed to be more like the desktop surfing experience. Director of Microsoft Live Labs, Dr Gary Flake, claims that this new technoogy has the ability to show webpages “as designed”. If Deepfish is successful, this will mean no more waiting several minutes to download one page that doesn’t look anything like the page you expected - a significant move forward for mobile technology. Web pages will no longer have to be designed especially for mobile consumption, but will be displayed on a user’s mobile device exactly as originally intended.

Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity to take the Beta version of Deepfish for a swim as there was only limited availability, if I am called up in the seond round, check back here for a full report on how useful it really is! Check out the MSN Live Labs website for further information.