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.

As Google continues to grow and move into new areas besides it’s core search products, it is beginning to cross paths with other leading computer giants such as Microsoft. Although Microsoft was traditionally associated with it’s infamous “Windows” operating system, it too is now building a great business from it’s own search engine and paid online advertising (Microsoft Ad Centre). As Microsoft grew in the 80’s and 90’s it gained a bad reputation from many, for acting as a monopoly and abusing it’s power as a market leader. In Europe, Microsoft has been repeatly fined and suffered stark criticsm at the hands of it’s competition.

In a move that stunned the media industry, Google recently expanded into online video by purchasing YouTube - thus offering a free video film service online. Old media is now striking back, with the filing of a $1 billion lawsuit by Viacom (owner of brands such as Paramount Pictures and MTV) against Google/YouTube for copywrite infringement. This could be very costly for Google if lost.

There is yet more trouble on the horizon as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp are joining with Google’s Internet rivals Microsoft and MySpace (owned by Murdoch) to offer entertainment and videos to their massive audience. This retaliation from competitor’s could stunt Google’s growth. In holding between a 40 and 70 per cent share of online advertising revenue, Google has become incredibly successful in a very short space of time, but by diversifying into other areas outside of search, such as mobile, new and video, Google has worried investors which has been reflected in it’s falling share costs since the beginning of this year.

This wrangling of power between old and new media looks set to continue as the entertainment world is redefined in the digital age. Google needs to take the bull by the horns and risk loosing popularity (as Microsoft did in the past) in order to cut itself a bigger slice of the new media market.