This Week in Social Networking

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With dozens of new sites popping up every week, and plenty of attention from the mainstream press, it's been a busy week for social networks.

Niche Networks Keep On Comin'

[img src="" caption="" credit="" alt=""]Are there any social networking niches yet to be filled? With scores of new entries into this space, the developers and entrepreneurs seem to think so. eBible, a social site for Bible study, moved in to public beta this week, while Mashable added two new contenders to the MySpace for Sports category - FanNation and Fanpage (both launched at the start of this month). Dogster, a niche social network for dogs, raised $1 million to help it expand, while ChickAdvisor, a review site for women, also earned some coverage.

Mixi It Up

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YouTube, MySpace and Universal

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MySpace Widgets: Trouble Ahead?

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Nonetheless, the development of third party tools for MySpace, Friendster and other networks continued unabated - MuveeMix launched instant movie mixes for MySpace, while Flixn released webcam video codes, allowing users to record a video and instantly post it to a website. Video site Motionbox also released a video player for MySpace and social networks, along with a deep tagging feature that allows users to label a certain part of a video. Dave.tv, another video-sharing venue, announced a similar player for MySpace, minus the deep tagging. What's more, a service called Broadtexter appeared on Mashable, serving up mobile text alerts for bands on MySpace Music. Additionally, Finetune launched their own MySpace music player, joining similar products from faces.com, Snocap and others.

Facebook Opens Up

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And with dozens more stories failing to make the cut, the social networking space is certainly hotting up.

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