GOOGLE > SketchUp

Google SketchUp (free) is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program that enables you to explore the world in 3D. With just a few simple tools, you can create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects - even space ships. And once you've built your models, you can place them in Google Earth, post them to the 3D Warehouse, or print hard copies.

http://sketchup.google.com/product_suf.html

SketchUp Pro 5 is a powerful 3D modeling tool whose robust feature set empowers design professionals to explore and communicate complex concepts, import and export a host of file formats, and create interactive presentations. You can also use SketchUp Pro to print to high-resolution devices, place your models in Google Earth, and post them to the 3D Warehouse.

http://sketchup.google.com/product_sup.html

SOCIAL NETWORKS > Living online: This is your space

IF THE web was once an enormous library, it is now a vast conversation. Transmitting information from one person to another has never been easier. Everyone can participate. Young people now communicate more through social networking websites than through email. Instead of keeping diaries, they keep blogs; instead of photo albums, they have Flickr.

While older adults go online to find information, the younger crowd go online to live. The boundaries between private and public and between offline and online are blurring, and there is a widening generation gap between adolescents growing up with social technology and adults who find it foreign and unsettling. Welcome to the MySpace generation.

It all happened remarkably quickly. The first social networking websites were born just three years ago, aimed at providing online forums where friends could connect. A year later online social networking was a fully fledged phenomenon. Today it is the face of the internet. Social networking websites have evolved from something to visit in your spare time to an integral part of daily life that many today cannot imagine living without.

SOCIAL NETWORKS > Losing Their Cool: The Downside of Expanding Hot Social Networking Sites

Facebook, a social networking site known as an online meeting place for college and high school students, is opening its doors to more people in an effort to grow beyond its current nine million registered users. The problem: The move could be risky if it blurs the company's focus and dilutes its brand.

Social networking sites often connect people within certain demographic groups -- such as students, business people, independent music fans or twenty-something urbanites -- using tools such as chat, uploaded pictures from users and online diaries.

WEB 2.0 > MSN's YouTube clone: Can this old-timer compete?

MSN is finally taking the wraps off its highly-anticipated user-generated-video service, known for some time by its code name, Warhol.

Not only is MSN a bit late to the party, it's a bit of an old-timer entering a game at which the young are ruling the roost.

The service, officially dubbed Soapbox, is intended to compete head to head with the popular YouTube video and social network site, as well as with similar services offered by old and new media companies. These include Google (GOOG) Video, and Time Warner's (TWX) user-generated video site on AOL as well as a couple dozen other video-sharing startups, such as Revver.com, Break.com, Guba.com, Grouper, which was just snapped up by Sony for $65 million, vMix.com, Veoh Networks, and so on, and so on, and so on.