For all those of you who spend a great deal of time outside the house trying to find and connect to open wireless networks, this is the post for you. WeFi is a free PC application which facilitates the process of finding and connecting to WiFi hotspots in any location. It has recently announced the opening of its public beta.

After you install the WeFi client, you will easily be able to find and connect to WiFi hotspots in your area. You will be able to see the signal strength of the networks, and also skip over the closed (secure) networks.

WeFi also adds an interesting social element to its application. The idea is this: When a user discovers an open network, he is then encouraged to share this spot with the community by marking his location on a map. Top mappers are recognized for their contribution to the community. The client then reports back to WeFi, which then shares the open access point with other WeFi users. The more users contribute, the more knowledge WeFi’s system gains, which also helps to continuously improve the application. Another cool feature is that the map and also the client displays the location of other WeFi users, so you can easily locate your friends.

I believe WeFi provides a real advantage for travelers who can easily see ahead of time where there are hotspots in any location and adjust their plans accordingly.

WeFi will soon announce Twitter support that will allow WeFi users to automatically let their friends know via Twitter where they are located and the name of the network they are connected to. Currently WeFi only works with Windows XP, but Vista and Mac versions are coming out soon. Those of you who spend a great deal of time outside, surfing the net, should definitely give WeFi a try.

Technorati tags: wefi, social, wireless, network, community, wifi, web 2.0, twitter, windows xp, vista, mac

Thanks to everyone who tuned in today to see my live interview with Chris Brogan on blogTV. We had a few technical issues, but overall it went great! A special thanks to Chris for giving us all a few tips on what it takes to be a great podcaster and answering our questions.

Technorati tags: internet tv, chris brogan, blogtv, podcasting

I hope you’ll all tune in to today’s show at 12pm EST. For any of you who would like to chat with us during the show, you can do so, by tuning in to the show’s site.

Thanks. “See” you all there!

Technorati tags: chris brogan, internet tv, podcasting, blonde 2.0 show, chat, blogtv

Tomorrow, Monday, June 25th, at 12pm EST, I will be doing a live interview with Chris Brogan, co-founder of Podcamp and also community developer for Network2.tv and Video on the Net. During the interview I will be asking Chris various questions about podcasting, why one should podcast, and how can one become a successful podcaster. Anyone who’s looking for a few podcasting tips and an understanding of the podcasting industry should definitely tune in. You can watch the interview here below on the blogtv live player. Hope that you’ll all tune in.

Technorati tags: chris brogan, internet tv, podcamp, network2.tv, video on the net, podcasting, instructional, blogtv

For all you podcasters out there, I found a great video on SuTree which gives a few simple but often ignored tips on how to promote your podcasts and increase their exposure:

Technorati tags: podcasting, sutree, google, promotion, instructional, video

I have to say this: Facebook is simply AMAZING! I believe there are various different reasons for why it’s so impressive and has gained so much popularity:

1) Facebook allows you to easily create a rich and well maintained profile. Friends can easily find you, connect, and invite you to use their favorite applications.

2) Facebook makes it easy to find your friends from the past and present (and not just the techy friends you have on Digg).

3) Facebook’s interface is so simple and easy to use .You are guided through each activity, every step of the way.

4) Facebook offers you such great applications. There are more than 800 new services — from photo slideshows to online file storage.

Here are some of my favorites:

1) My Flickr - allows you to share your Flickr pics, so go ahead, show yourself on facebook.

2) Digg - allows you to show your recent diggs, so show everyone how active you are!

3) Delicious - allows you to show your recent bookmarks on Delicious, so do share your links.

4) Twitter - allows you to update your Twitter right from Facebook, so let everyone know what you’re doing now.

5) iLike - allows you to post the concerts you’re going to (or want to go to) and add music to your profile, so let everyone know what type of music you enjoy.

6) Meebo - allows your Facebook friends to chat with you, so chat with them and get to know them better.

7) Free gifts - allows you to send free gifts to your friends, so why not show your love?

SuperPoke! - allows you to pinch, hug, tickle, or throw sheep at your Facebook friends. Admit it. You’ve always wanted to throw sheep at someone

9) (Fluff) Friends - allows you to adopt a pet and have him say different things. For those of us who live in an apartment and can’t have a pet, this offers a good solution.

10) YouTube Skins - by Slide allows you to add your favorite YouTube videos to your profile and customize them, so share your favorites!

11) Movies - by Flixster allows you to let your friends know which movies you’ve seen and share reviews with them. This provides a great way to pick your movies.

12) Feeds - by Alloyfish allows you to share all your favorite RSS feeds with your Facebook buddies. A great way to share your favorite readings with others.

By offering a platform that lets anyone build online services that operate within its site, Facebook has made a very smart move. According to the Wall Street Journal:

“All the activity has helped Facebook grow to 27 million active users from 24 million before the platform launch, with more than half using at least one of the new services….Facebook can nurture an ecosystem of developers who can create services far faster than Facebook could build them on its own.”

According to Wikipedia, Facebook is one of the most visited sites on the net today, ranked between top 10-20 most visited websites as of June 2007, and is the number one site for photos in the US, ahead of sites such as Flickr, with over 8.5 million photos uploaded daily. It is also the seventh most visited site in the US.

This comes as no surprise to me. Facebook has done an amazing job in keeping its users active and its interface nice and neat. If you are a company or an individual that’s trying to increase your exposure, and have a nice, interactive application to offer, I highly suggest that you consider offering it through Facebook. According to the same Wall Street Journal article mentioned above, iLike is receiving more revenue from Facebook than from iLike.com by displaying ads and getting commissions for selling songs and concert tickets via Facebook.

I would be happy to hear from you guys what your favorite applications on Facebook are. For now, I’ll say goodbye. I’m going to check out some more applications myself now. One can never grow tired of this site

Technorati tags: facebook, social network, community, Digg, flickr, delicious, twitter, ilike, meebo, youtube, slide, flixster, alloyfish, rss feeds, wall street journal, wikipedia

Checking out the new blogtv embedded client together with Chris Brogan.

Technorati tags: blogtv, internet tv, chris brogan, blonde 2.0

Ever tried to explain to your non-geeky friends what Digg is all about and how to use it? This cool video I found on 5min , created by Michael Faneca, may be helpful.

Technorati tags: digg, 5min, video, instructional, web 2.0, social bookmarking

Kent has tagged me in the “happy songs” tagging game. The idea is that now I need to name one song which always lifts my spirits when I hear it…so hear goes….after thinking about this for a while, at the risk of appearing extremely cheesy..I will have to say that even though it’s not one of my top favorites, I find Matthew Wilder’s song Break My Stride utterly uplifting every time I hear it. If you sing this song to yourself each day, you’ll feel like you can conquer the world Matthew Wilder’s Break My Stride.

So c’mon everyone, sing with me, you’ll notice the effect in no time:

Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride

Nobody’s gonna slow me down,

oh no! I got to keep on moving

Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride

I’m running and I won’t touch ground,

oh no! I got to keep on moving….

Check out Matthew Wilder’s pic above. I am beginning to have second doubts about this post (but hey, I am the one who said that you should open up to your community, so don’t say I didn’t stick to my philosophy :-)).

I am going to tag: Jeff Pulver, Chris Brogan, Deborah Schultz, Yaniv Golan , Kfir Pravda , Jesse Chenard, and Diogenes

Technorati tags: kent newsome, music, songs, matthew wilder, break my stride, community, collaborative playlist

BlogTV has just released its new new live embeddable player. The new player enables broadcasters to showcase their live shows on any web page that is located outside the blogTV site. So for instance, if you are a blogger, you can broadcast directly from your own blog. How cool is that? Another great feature is the co-host split screen view. When broadcasting, the player shows a live video stream of the show’s host and co-host, accompanied with the live chat feed.

I was fortunate enough to be one of the first 10 people who got access to this amazing new product, and was very impressed. By letting users showcase their broadcasts directly from their blogs, I believe blogtv has really tuned into the Web 2.0 community’s needs and has proven itself as a fierce competitor in the personal broadband broadcasting arena.

Technorati tags: blogtv, internet tv, broadcasting, blogging, web 2.0, personal broadband broadcasting