Multiple chat client Digsby is undergoing a few changes, all of which are being revealed today. The desktop application that lets you login to several chat and social media services at once has seen a good amount of success since launching less than two years ago, but Digsby is now focused on gaining the top spot as a stable and functional instant messaging tool.

In order to achieve this, Digsby has redone a great deal of its performance optimization, reducing overall CPU usage by nearly 50%. File transfers have also been improved for AIM, ICQ and MSN. Support has also been added for MySpace status updates, and for the invisible status on Gtalk.
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Where I’ve Been is an application that became a sensation on platforms like Facebook, where millions added the application that displays a map of where you’ve traveled to across the world. But that was about the extent of the Where I’ve Been application, especially as the company relied a great deal on integration with social networks to provide additional community features and user-generated value by way of recommendations or direct and personalized advice to others.

That’s all changed. A year after being acquired, Where I’ve Been has relaunched this week, giving better community features to its stand alone site in order to provide additional value to site visitors and users alike.
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CCBetty, the personal assistant service that creates a web-based mailspace, has added a few new features that further simplify the organization process. Namely search, viewing options and other custom capabilities have enhanced CCBetty’s core feature set.

For instance, CCBetty now offers alternate color schemes for your mailspace. There’s also a new at-a-glance option, which helps you better process your mailspace’s new information, updates and shared content.
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Leora Israel currently performs business development for Speaklike.com. Follow her @leoraisrael.
Social Media has created a whole new set of interactive dilemmas. This morning when I went to DM (direct message) someone with whom I thought I was in a mutual follow relationship with on Twitter, I got the sad reality check that they don’t follow me back! You can only send a private message to someone via Twitter if they are following you.

Social media has made socializing a bit more complex with new rules of engagement. With the new complexities comes new questions:
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Trade Monster is an online brokerage site that is looking to grow and empower its users, with Twitter integration.

Now traders on the site can tweet their actions, such as stock they’re buying or selling. For instance, when you’re about to buy or sell a particular stock, you have the option of tweeting that action. There’s a window that appears with a pre-populated tweet telling of your action, and you can modify or add to this message as you see fit.

The Twitter integration is also applied to forums and other areas of the site, enabling you to tweet general questions, thoughts and opinions to Twitter users.
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The Special Olympics launched a major online social media campaign on March 31st called “Spread the Word to End the Word.” And what word would that be? The R-word. “Retard.”

The word has a derogatory meaning in many aspects of our culture, and when used in jest or otherwise, the result can be damaging and has a lasting effect on organizations such as The Special Olympics that fight to empower people with disabilities. The social media campaign itself was a success, and The Special Olympics is quick to attribute the power of the individuals that make up the various social networking sites for their support.
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This morning Drop.io revealed another feature set to its web-based file sharing service. Called phone.io, the applet works by providing voice-related options for drop.io users. In doing so, users are now more easily able to leave voicemails, podcasts and other audio message files in their accounts.

One of phone.io’s most appealing use-case options is for voicemail messages, which seems to be building off of drop.io’s recently added conference call capabilities. With phone.io one can leave a voicemail message for themselves or other users, which can then be downloaded, embedded or shared across the social web. There are one-click sharing options for creating voicemail or podcasts in real time, with sharing options for iTunes, RSS, email, Twitter, and Facebook to name a few.
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Married on MySpace. It’s got alliteration, but does it have your vote of confidence? In partnership with Endemol, the production company behind a number of reality shows made for television and the web, MySpace is taking vows to give users the wedding of their dreams.

The new interactive online series is set to air in May, with 13 episodes and a live wedding ceremony concluding the show in August, but submissions for the show open up today. The deadline is April 17th and the finalists for Married on MySpace will be announced on April 24th. Similar to wedding shows seen on morning news programs or the Lifetime Network, its the viewers (in this case, MySpace users) that determine which lucky couple will get an all-expenses-paid wedding.
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Cliqset, which officially launches its public beta today, is one of the several companies looking to make online networking easier for the individual. With goals as grand as OpenID, Cliqset is actually working in tandem with the established methods of “portable profiles” in order to push the trend forward, providing an ever-accessible omnipresence for end users that benefits the participating publishers and site owners as well. With such a seamless concept for site accessibility, Cliqset presents itself as an immediate socialization tool, providing instant networks for sites, while bridging the gap between computer-based and mobile applications as well. Below is an interview with Darren Bounds, co-Founder and President of Cliqset.
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In the past hour or so we’ve noticed an increase in the number of Twitter users that are seeing AJAX update refreshes on their Twitter home pages. Is Twitter experimenting with AJAX for tweet updates?

I haven’t witnessed it myself but the Web Distortion blog has grabbed a screen shot of the new option; at the bottom of the profile page the “Older” button has been replaced with “More.” Clicking on “more” will load new tweets on top of the old ones, without refreshing the entire page.

The “more” button’s sporadic appearances lead us to believe that Twitter is still in the testing phases for a new AJAX feature, which would be quite helpful for a number of users that stick to the main website for the bulk of their Twitter activity. It would also be a rather big update for Twitter, which has remained a largely basic and unchanged service since its launch.

It’s been the third party developers that often create valuable added features such as AJAX updates, but perhaps the infringing competition from Facebook is encouraging Twitter to push out more features on its own, especially if they’ll enhance the user experience directly on Twitter’s website.