Our friends over at Shiny Shiny have just launched a brand new look for the website!

Click here to check it out.

TV Scoop and Shiny Style have been under the web surgeon's knife too, looking better than ever.

Let us know what you think of the makeovers in the comments section below.

After 5 months of testing, Microsoft's Bing search engine is shedding it's beta skin and officially launching.

Bing features:

• A localised UK homepage, featuring hotspot-snippets of information on a daily theme.
• Visual Search, which images and meta data to search without having to type in keywords
• Instant Answers, which gives answers quickly to specific queries
• Twitter feed searching, pulling up Tweets in Bing searches in real-time
• Integrated shopping with Ciao UK
• Bing Maps, designed based on data collected from Multi map users

It's a feature-rich site which could prove popular with those tired of Google's stripped back approach to web-searching.

Check out Bing UK here.

Celebrating 40 years of children's TV gold this year, Sesame Street is honoured today by a special Google homepage.

Depending on where in the world you live, the Google log will have a different Sesame Street character decorating it. UK users currently have the Cookie Monster gobbling up a cookie-dough Google logo.

An "edutainment" family favourite, Sesame Street spawned countless movies and spin-offs, and regularly featured all-star guest appearances.

Check the Google special here.

Tech Digest challenge you to check out the Pointer Sister's Pinball Number Count song from the show and not have it stuck in your head all day!

Web searching with Ask Jeeves is set to get personal, with a new range of customizable wallpapers for the home of the web's most famous butler.

The new imagery offered by Ask Jeeves ranges from animal pictures to landscapes and scenery, flags and sporting photos to seasonal pictures. If you can't find a theme to suit your mood, Jeeves will also allow you to upload your own pictures for use as wallpaper.

Christine Vonderach, Vice President of Product and Technology for Ask Jeeves, said: "People spend hours looking at their computer screen but it is surprising how many do not make an effort to improve what they are looking at. We see our new themes as the modern version of pin up posters on the wall or framed photos on the desk, something that can instantly cheer you up when you catch a glimpse of it."

Check out the customizable Ask Jeeves here.

We've already had word today of a new-look MSN site, but Microsoft are ready to bolster that announcement with further news of a re-launched MSN UK music service. Though still in the beta stages, MSN are looking to launch both a download store and streaming service.

The Download-to-Own service will feature a credit system. £7.99 will bag you ten of these credits which can be exchanged for ten singles or a whole album. The tracks will be DRM free, but will initially come in WMA formats rather than the more popular MP3.

The streaming service has fewer available details at the moment. We do know however that the service will be free and browser based, and will be supported by visual rather than audio advertisements. At present, the service is only available to a limited number of invited guests.

Having bagged the support of four major labels and already in these early stages having secured roughly a million tracks, MSN look set to put up a decent fight in the competitive music service sphere.

Microsoft is set to launch an overhauled design for its MSN.com web portal.

Social media and customisation are high on the agenda, with users able to import streams from both their Twitter and Facebook accounts. Video content will also feature more predominantly, as the site gets rid of its cluttered look of old. Bing, Microsoft's search engine, will also be a more prominent feature of the site.

With so many changes set to feature, Microsoft are planning a staggered release of the new-look site. With MSN.com attracting huge numbers of visitors and the new design pushing Bing to the foreground, nailing an aesthetically pleasing design could swing the web-search wars Microsoft's way.

You can see a preview of the new site here. There's no news yet on when it will debut in the UK.

It is sometimes easy to forget how much social media (blogs, social networking) and consumer electronics have changed the world in the last few years, but this video puts it in some kind of perspective.

Here's a few stats

1 in 8 couples who married in the US last year met via the web

It took radio 48 years to reach 50 million users and TV 13 years. However the Internet did this in just four.

If Facebook was a country it would be the fourth largest in the world

There's loads more too - great little video

Apparently it took radio

Here's a slightly odd one. Wolfram Alpha, who developed that innovative new search technology earlier in the year, has just unveiled an iPhone app for the site. The rub is that it costs a whopping (for an iPhone app anyhow) $50 and this in spite of the fact that a version of the site optimised for the iPhone is available for free.

The developers say that the new app is a lot more powerful than the website and is a load more easy to use too. It also has some innovative features like a joint QWERTY/numeric keypad, which bearing in mind that a lot of WA queries involve both numbers and words, makes perfect sense. Other facilities include the ability to optimise the app to suit your location, the option of bookmarking queries and easier emailing or sharing of queries.

The app is apparently aimed at student and teachers. Though the bad news for the latter is that it needs an Internet connection to work properly which may cuase an issue or two in the exam room. More here.

Here's an interesting and simple idea - a bit like a Karaoke version of the Million Dollar home page guy meets those naff T-Mobile ads in Trafalgar Square.

Dell and MTV have joined together to produce Amplichoir. The idea is simple. You record yourself singing Lollipop (the music used in the Dell adverts of course) using a webcam and microphone and you can see and hear yourself by clicking on a thumbnail on the home screen.

Billed as the world's biggest karaoke, it's so far attracted around 500 people to participate. The incentive for people to take part - apart from the chance of singing a rubbishy, but very catchy, song out of tune? The chance to win VIP tickets to the European MTV Music Awards and afterparty in Berlin on November 5th.

The prize includes flights and accommodation for you and a friend, stretch limousine transfers to and from the airport and awards, champagne and flowers in your room when you arrive, dinner for two at Fischers Fritz (the only 2 Michelin Star restaurant in Berlin), a relaxing massage in the Regent Spa, make-up/hairdresser to get you looking good for the awards and after-party, and an EMA Award presented to you on the red carpet. So what are you waiting for? Time to dust off that miicrophone and croon with the best of them.

http://www.amplichoir.com/

So you didn't get a Google Wave invitation today then? Nope, me neither. So I think between us we have two alternatives. One is to hop off down to eBay and buy one for £35 - though I have to admit I think the chances of it popping up in our inboxes are pretty remote. The second is to go searching round the web for sites and apps that work in a similar way to Google Wave. And that's exactly what I have done.

Before we get carried away I should stress that Google Wave is a pretty unique product and these in no way replicate all of what it does. Rather some of them replicate some of what Google Wave does in that they offer interesting online collaboration or messaging solutions. So here then are five to have a play with.

Click on the image to view the five

Today's huge news story is of course the launch of the Google's collaborative online communication system the Wave. Unless you have been under a tech rock you'll know that that the Wave brings together applications such as email, Instant Messaging as well image and document sharing in a innovative new tool online tool. It is designed for both businesses - so that users can have real-time conversations with their colleagues - and consumers, who can also use the Wave to plan holidays, nights out etc with their friends.

The brainchild of Google's star developers, the Rasmussen brothers, the Wave has been described as what email would be like were it invented today.

It also sounds very exciting and I can't want to get my hands on an invitation, however in spite of a positive reaction to the app today from many key industry figures Google has a long way to go before it can make the Wave a success.

Here are the key issues it faces

1 Browser compatibility - Not surprisingly the Wave works with Google's Chrome browser and it will also function with Firefox, but to get it working with Microsoft's Internet Explorer requires a plug-in, and guess what, Microsoft is advising IE users not to download it. It might not have as high profile as Chrome and Firefox these days but IE is still the browser of choice of 65% of web users.

2 The Google Wave already has plenty of competition - Although the Wave has many unique features people are already using web based tools and sites to make and share documents. In a very basic way there is a great deal of collaboration already going on via Facebook, Twitter and even MySpace, while at the more corporate end of the spectrum are several excellent collaboration tools already such as the UK's very own Huddle. Then of course there are already millions of people across the globe using Microsoft's collaboration tools.

3 Google has a habit of launching products that don't fulfil their potential - Ok Google dominates the search market and has had several massive successes, but for every Adsense, which has revolutionised the online advertising market there are many Google innovations like Google Answers which simply don't register with consumers. There's also the issue for Chrome which has done reasonably well so far, but is still a minor player in the browser market with a market share of just 2.84%. And as for Google Docs, well that is still a missed opportunity for me at least.

4 The Wave might be too fiddly for consumers, yet not corporate enough for businesses - In my experience company IT departments, in the UK at least, tend to be very conservative and slow to adopt new systems. That means that many mid and large companies are firmly wedded to Microsoft and are very slow to look for solutions outside the MS orbit. As for consumers the Wave might just prove to be a little too sophisticated. The Wave, with its mix of communication tools, images and maps is perfect for planning a trip to the pub? But would you use it for something that simple? Mmm not sure.

5 Application melt down - The Wave, which has an open API, does provide developers with an opportunity to showcase their wares. But how many of them will take the plunge? Google is up against everything from the iPhone to Facebook and both of those have much larger more engaged audiences than Wave will have for at least the next couple of years. A lack of any decent apps might make Wave look a bit second rate.

Just pop along here to register

There are apparently 100,000 invitations up for grabs though it looks like developers will be at the front of the queue.

I don't think it is doing them a dis-service by saying that national newspapers are now desperately trying to discover new ways of making money online. Probably none more so than The Guardian, which has always been an online innovator and could quite frankly do with the cash.

So it isn't a huge surprise to discover that the newspaper has a paid for iPhone app in the pipeline. The news was broken by the blog Paid Content, which is actually part of the Guardian Media group.

The Guardian's Digital director Emily Bell told the blog. "It's still in development, but we are working on an app which I can't give you too much more detail on at the moment, although we are likely to charge."

Apparently staff at the newspaper have been testing out the app and this was a confirmed by an errant tweet from a staffer.

It will be interesting to see what the app offers other than access to the newspaper. The Guardian could begin to slice up its content keeping most of it free but putting premium content - longer stories, interviews etc, behind a pay wall that only app owners could success.

One of the big issues facing the music industry at the moment is how does it work out who are the most popular musicians around? Working on the premise that the download chart will go the way of CD and record sales charts (as fewer people pay for music), it is clear that we need a new chart that maybe counts online streaming, band's fan pages views and more.

Well, The Next Big Sound might just be the template for the charts of tomorrow. It is a very clever site that lets you find out how popular bands are online. It does this by collating plays, views, fans, comments, and other data for almost half a million artists across major online properties, including iTunes, Last.fm, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.

It might sound boring, but believe me it is hugely entertaining and completely addictive - just input your favorite bands and away you go. It is not only fascinating to see if Lady Gaga is bigger online than our very own Florence and The Machine, but you can also compare four bands at a time - which is great for old geezers comparing obscure indie 80s bands etc. It is also interesting to note that the bands that generate the most comments and posts aren't always the ones that get played the most.

The only annoying thing about it is that it doesn't seem to let you save results. Def check it out though.

One of the big hits of 2009 as far as blogging is concerned has been Posterous. The easy peasy platform has won over both hardcore bloggers and newbies with its mix of a genius bookmarklet - that makes grabbing content from any web page a cinch - and the option of creating a post by email.

There are however several areas where Posterous is lagging behind its rivals and one of these was the ability to customise a blog layout. Up until last week every Posterous blog had the same layout and colour scheme. Well now Posterous users can add their banners, choose from different types of layout, adopt a theme and even create their own themes via HTML and CSS.

There are several other areas where Posterous needs to innovate to get ahead of its rivals, but for me at least it remains my favourite blogging platform.

Incidentally Posterous' rivals haven't been standing still. Typepad, which has been around for donkeys, recently added Posterous type features (the bookmarklet and posting by email) and we'll look at this and see how it compares with Posterous and its rival Tumblr later this week.

The big issue in UK media at the moment is how to make money out of online content. Currently most sites rely on advertising to generate income, but it is now clear that the money from those banner and flash things just isn't enough to fund most newspapers. Plan B, as outlined by Rupert Murdoch, is to charge readers to look at the sites. So the Sunday Times will go subscription only very soon and other newspapers may follow. There's also talk of a micro payment system being created whereby you pay a small amount for each bit of newspaper content you read.

But will the British public cough up for something that has been free since the dawn of the web? Well according to a survey commissioned by Paid Content UK and run by Harris Interactive, apparently not

Asked if their favourite news site were to charge three quarters of people would simply switch to an alternative free news source with just five percent of readers prepared to commit to paying for the site.

The survey also concludes that younger, poorer and lower class readers are more likely to pay the subs than older, richer and posher ones. There's a regional bias too with people in London and the south east more likely to pay a subscription than those in the north and west.

"This does not look like good news for a pay model in a competitive environment," Andrew Freeman, Harris' senior media research consultant told Paid Content. "As long as free alternatives exist, consumers will turn to them for their daily news information, meaning heavy losses in terms of audience figures for those that charge. "

Media for free

British consumers do have a point too, for even if every major British newspaper charges for content they will still have places to go.

The two things that will make it very tricky for media organisations to charge for content are -

1 Blogs. Walled content gardens could actually spark a renaissance in blogging, especially when coupled with tools like Posterous (which works incredibly well with Twitter), as bloggers simply cut and paste (either physically or intellectually) subscription content from media sources and publish it freely.

2 The BBC. At the time of writing the corp is still going to offer all its content for free, so readers can still access one of the world's premium news sources for nothing. It makes paying that few quid each month to The Guardian looks a lot less appealing.

There is some debate about whether the next government will curtail the BBC's online ambition, but this remains to be seen.

But we pay for TV...

It should be noted that many Britons who were very opposed to the idea of paying for subscription TV quite happily now pay for Sky and Virgin Media. Also 5% may sounds like s small figure, but it would generate a substantial amount of income, probably much more than the media companies are getting via advertising.

So what about you? Would you pay for The Guardian? The Mirror? Or even the Sport?

So there's no Beatles on iTunes and the Fab Four have so far resisted the lure of Spotify, which makes we7's announcement this morning that it actually has some Beatles tunes on its site a bit of a coup. According to Music Ally streaming/download start up has hatched a deal with Sir Paul McCartney to include his live versions of a load of Beatles classic. So while there's no Strawberry Fields or any other John classics, we7 users can stream Hey Jude, Eleanor Rigby and Yesterday and even embed them on other sites too

"The Beatles are everywhere today with the release of their newly remastered work and the launch of Beatles Rock Band - but to date, their catalogue has not been made available through any legal online music services," says CEO Steve Purdham. "we7 listens to what our users want and as a result, we're giving them the chance to listen to the best line up of classic Beatles tracks sung by Sir Paul himself. You just need to hit the play button!"

Perhaps the strangest, certainly the most unusual, Christmas gift I've heard of since that company that produced certificates for buying a chunk of the moon. Yes this Chrimbo you can get your very own matchbox with your domain name written on it. Simply open up your matchbox to find a unique activation code, then type it into the Mr Site website to register your domain name. Well I guess it beats socks - just about.

As long as your choice is still available, 'Dot Com in a Matchbox' can offer the following domains for one whole year: .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .co.uk, .org.uk. Visit www.mrsite.com for more information and to buy online. To build a website for your name, Mr Site also offers Website Beginner (£19.99), Standard (£34.99) or Pro (£99.99)? No matchbox required.

www.mrsite.com

I bet Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has had a pretty broad grin on his face this week. For at the TechCrunch 50 conference in San Francisco the company announced it had reached two major milestones. Firstly it has passed 300 million worldwide members and secondly its monthly revenues now covered its costs and the company was starting to make money.

Zuckerberg had predicted that Facebook would be profitable by 2010 so it is starting to create income a few months ahead of scheduled. Making money in a period of economic downturn and, let's not forget, the most depressed period ever for online advertising revenue is itself a very impressive feat.

Nick O'Neill of AllFacebook.com told the BBC "If the company can cover the cost of scaling to one billion users and still manage to break even, there's no doubt that the company will have a great opportunity to rake in billions."

It ought to be added that while Facebook is now making more than enough to cover its costs, that doesn't include the money pumped into the site such as the £300 million it took from Russian investment vehicle Digital Sky Technologies.

Facebook has also had a huge growth spurt this year attracting another 50 million members in the last 75 days.This does of course beg the question - how big can Facebook get? Well much of its recent growth has been in its core markets of North American and Europe. Its levels of growth outside those spheres have been less impressive. There are some hot spots such as Indonesia, but in many big emerging country markets Facebook's growth is limited.

One of the problems it faces is that in key territories there are already local social networking sites that have a Facebook style stranglehold already. In Korea Cyworld, with its 24 million members, has managed to keep Facebook and its rivals at bay. In Central America the big player is Sonico and further south in countries like Argentina Hi5 sets the agenda. There are also problems for Facebook in China where the authorities apparently perceive the site as very western and a unwanted influence on its people. Ironically Friendster, the original social networking site which predates Facebook and Facebook, is now performing well in Asia.

They key then to Facebook's growth could prove to be India and its surrounding countries. It has been suggested that much of the reason for the launch of Facebook Lite last week was to push the social networking site in the region.

Zuckerberg and his team's other big problem is keeping notoriously fickle Westerners coming back to his site. The acquisition of FriendFeed and the move to incorporate Twitter-style micro blogging elements on the site show that Facebook is ready to meet challenges to its hegemony head on.

It is worth remembering though that every big social networking site so far has peaked and then started to fall. In the UK Friends Reunited had spectacular fall from grace. Now even MySpace is struggling to reconnect with its audience.

Facebook's one huge advantage over its rivals is the huge amount of content and data that users already have on their pages, so it makes it much harder for users to move to another site.

Overall though there may be a few wobbles in the Us and Europe in the next couple of years but with new markets emerging all the time Facebook is clearly going to continue to grow for sometime yet.

One of the reasons why I love Posterous so much is that I find it hard to say anything of any merit in 140 charactars on Twitter. Posterous enables me and others, to at least add a few words of our own to a link or a story which it then publishes on Twitter and Facebook for us.

So in theory I should be very excited about a new site that launched this week called Woofer. Woofer, however, is really just a practical joke albeit a rather good one. Instead of the 140 charactars that Twitter offers with Woofer you get 1400 charactars. However the fun bit is that if you don't reach 1400 charactars it won't let you post.

And while it may be a bit of an online gag at the moment, maybe it does have a use or two. The most popular post on there at the moment is called 'Four score and seven years' and is an inspiring segment of a speech from US President Abraham Lincoln. Some smart people have also nicked bits from speeches from the likes of Martin Luther King and Thomas Jefferson and even a para or two from novels by the likes of Charles Dickens. There are albums reviews and the odd rehashed blog post too. Of course a lot of what has been posted on Woofer is completely unreadable, but in some ways that's half the fun.

Just maybe the Woofer crew are on to something here. Maybe there is space for a Twitter type site where people add slightly longer posts. How about come classic bits of comedy? Some cool song lyrics? Anyone got any other cool ideas.