So, I logged on to my Gmail account this morning and instead of going directly to my inbox, I landed on a new page introducing me to Buzz. Buzz is a set of social networking features added to Gmail. Google is hoping that instead of sharing information on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace users will take to this new offering. Google has ventured in to the social networking realm with Orkut, but for some strange reason Orkut has only been successful in Brazil. This time around Google is banking on its captive audience to gain a larger foot hold in the burgeoning social networking arena. Other than the service being tied to Gmail, the service offerings are the same as other social networking sites. You can follow other Buzz users, add status updates, share videos and photos, and integrate it with other sites like Picassa, Flickr, Twitter, and Google Reader. You can make posts public or private. Buzz can even be loaded on your mobile phone. I like the move, but are folks ready to switch to yet another social networking "flavor of the day"? As usual, time will tell.

Beginning at 11:01pm CDT Friday Facebook will allow its users to claim a name as part of their profile page’s Web Address i.e. http://facebook.com/johndoe. This will allow users to replace the randomly selected string of numbers currently assigned to each profile. Businesses and Fan pages will be able to adopt such names as well, but they will have had to have been on the site by May 31st with at least 1,000 fans at that time. It’s all first come first served. To avoid squatting only users who have joined before 3pm Tuesday will be able to sign up for usernames initially. All else will have to wait until June 28th. By the by, MySpace has provided this since their launch.

A few days ago Google announced the upcoming release of its latest application called "Wave". Google Wave is a new communication and collaboration tool. It’s meant to answer the question, "What would email look like if it had been invented today?". It combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client. The result is an offering that may revolutionize how we communicate via the Internet.

According to the company:

"a wave is equal parts conversation and document where users can almost instantly communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

An exciting aspect of Google Wave is that the company is releasing it as an open-source platform with an extremely rich set of APIs that will allow developers to embed waves in other web services and to also build extensions. Individuals and organizations will be able to set-up and run their own Wave servers. This is similar to how email servers are built and managed. Communications can be limited internally or opened up to other Wave servers as communication and work flow dictate.

If you’re curious for more view the video below:

Secondly, hit Google Wave a Complete Guide over at Mashable.com. After that ponder the possibilities of unified communication!

Google has announced that it will be rolling out offline functionality for Gmail. The company is calling the feature experimental. The functionality is facilitated by Gears, the same web application used to provide offline functionality in other Google web applications. Once the feature is enabled, Gmail uses Gears to download a local cache of your mail. Synchronization occurs as long as you are connected to the internet. Once the connection closes, Gmail automatically switches to offline mode and uses the cache stored on your hard drive. While offline you can compose, search, and label messages. There is even a "flaky connection mode" for weak or unreliable network connections. Early reports are that working with Gmail offline is indistinguishable from working with the application online. You can check to see if your account has access to this feature by clicking on the Labs tab under Settings within Gmail.

This week Steve Jobs announced a refreshed iPod line and the release of version 2.1 of the iPhone software:

iPod Nano

• Square design abandoned in favor of the elongated design of its second generation
• Curved design made of aluminum and glass.
• An accelerometer has been added to flip the screen when tilted
• Accelerometer places the device in shuffle mode when shaken
• A genius list feature similar to Pandora has been added
• It comes in nine "nano-chromatic" colors… according to Apple
• Prices are 8GB for $149 and 16GB for $199

iPod Touch

• Slightly slimmer and lighter
• New volume control buttons
• Built-in loudspeaker
• Prices are 8GB for $229, 16GB for $299, and 32GB for $399

iPhone 2.1 Software Update

• Decreases dropped calls
• Improved battery life
• Reduce backup time
• Improved email readability and retrieval
• Fixes bugs causing hangs and crashes with 3rd party apps
• Faster App Store installs
• Faster loading and searching of contacts
• Improved accuracy of 3G signal strength display
• Repeat alert for incoming messages
• Option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
• Genius playlist creation

The reviews are coming in on Google’s new browser Chrome. It seems to be passing the test of early scrutiny. According to the search giant, Google Chrome is a browser that combines minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. Google sees their latest offering as a result of rethinking current browser design. It was built from scratch and designed to render rich interactive applications. It is meant to be a modern platform for web pages and applications. It was designed to handle the beefed up internet of today and not the static web of yesterday.

Some features of Google Chrome include a blazing fast rendering engine built around the same engine used in Safari, Webkit. Google Chrome has an incognito mode for private browsing. In this mode, no traces of your surfing are left behind. Chrome also sports an intelligent start page which lists thumbnails of frequently visited web pages. Each tab within Chrome is handled by a separate process so if a site crashes one tab, the other tabs are not effected. The built in task manager also lets you see the amount of resources, such as CPU and memory, a web site is consuming. Finally, Chrome lets you drag a tab into its own window and an individual window into its own tab.

All in all Google Chrome looks to present another viable browser choice which should serve to make all players in the market that much stronger.

Comcast, the world’s second largest internet service provider has announced that beginning Oct. 1, it will update its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of traffic per month. Until now, Comcast has reserved the right to cut off subscribers who use too much bandwidth each month without specifying exactly what constitutes excessive use. Customers who exceed the limit will be contacted by the company and asked to reduce their usage. Comcast had floated the idea of charging customers an additional fee for excessive use, but the mention of an overage fee is not mentioned in the official statement. According to Comcast, the average customer uses approximately 2 to 3 gigabytes monthly. With the 250 gigabyte limit, a user could theoretically download 125 standard-definition movies, about four per day, before hitting the limit. The company states this curb is needed to keep the network fast and responsive for other users.

From the category of “Why is getting something so simple so hard?” a work around has arrived to give iPhone users the cut and paste functionality they have been clammering for. Working around Apple’s SDK restrictions, the good folks at OpenClip , i.e. Zac White, have created a framework that allow applications to access shared space on the iPhone. This information can then be “pasted” into another application on the device. The catch? To take advantage of this functionality applications have to be designed to include the framework developed by OpenClip. Although this functionality is not built into the operating system natively it certainly beats the “Let them eat cake” attitude exhibited by Apple.

You can now consume many popular magazines online via the web site Mygazines. The site contains user scanned and uploaded copies of popular magazines. A slick flash interface makes it pretty similar to flipping through a hard copy of the publication. Will it last? Yahoo News is reporting that publishers are working hard to shut down the site. The problem is that the site is registered in the Caribbean island of Anguilla and hosted in Sweden.

It’s being  reported that the first phone to ship running Google’s Android software could begin shipping in October. The phone will be by handset maker HTC and will run on the T-Mobile network. Early reports are that the phone is technically powerful but not as elegant as Apple’s iPhone and OS X. This all comes after much speculation of a Google Phone and Google confirming its interest in developing for a mobile device almost a year ago. It will be interesting to see the public response to Android considering the grumbling regarding Apple’s newest 3G offering and the high expectation for just about anything that Google releases. Also, there is in issue regarding the purported preferential treatment of certain development teams by Google. After all, the whole concept behind Android was for it to be an open platform for phone development. Another question remains about the ability of T-Mobile to handle 3G traffic on its network. Currently it is only testing 3G in a couple of markets. Plans to roll out 3G to all of its customers seem to coincide with the release of this Android phone. It remains to be seen if T-Mobile can avoid the problems that AT&T experienced when the large number of iPhone 3Gs hit their network.

FYI, 3G basically refers to third-generation cell phone technology. When all is well, 3G speeds rival those of wireless technology allowing for snappier browsing on cellular phones.