This is an awesome new image locating tool that uses Web 3.0 technology to find and locate images and graphics that have been stored and published on the Internet. Unlike Google,Picitup makes locating the exact images that you need or are looking to see a whole lot easier to retrieve from the millions and billions of images published on the worldwide web. The Advanced filtering options allows users to filter images by categories, color, shape, layout, and size or you can retrieve images by visual ranks.

Jumpcut

This website offers an incredible and unique opportunity for anyone interested in making and creating videos, rich multimedia content and share it with the world or narrow it to only those people that you want to see your finished creation. Jumpcut allows its members to make movies, music videos and even produce their own movie remix. Do everything from collaborating with the user community to using editing tools that makes making movies as easy as 1-2-3.

Eyespot

The world of accessing the Internet has become more than just logging in on a PC or laptop and exploring the world of information. Now, it includes mobile phones, portable players and other connected devices and being able to share you favorite videos that you create to this broaden market increases the opportunities to let your star shine more brightly. EyeSpot provides video editing and sharing software that is easy-to-use, intuitive, and accessible to all end-users.

Chihuahua

The Internet is a fantastic place to find and play all kinds of new word games, but Chihuahua is a game that challenges the skills of the finest wordsmiths from around the world. Players must makes as many words as possible 4 letters or more (plurals and verb forms ending in S are not allowed) and at least one word using all 9 letters. Each and every word must incorporate the middle letter on the game board in each of the words. Players can play alone or compete against the world by putting their names on the scoreboard.

Campfire

Campfire is a web-based, password-protected chat room that users can employ to collaborate, chat and communicate with up to 60 people at once. Users can share files, images, chat privately or even browse previous chats by person, room, or date given them more communication capabilities than any other chat room of its kind.

BlogLines

BlogLines is an easy-to-use blog and news feed search, online subscriptions, news reader, blog publishing and social sharing tool that allows users to organize and stay up-to-date with all of their favorite web content from a single location. There are numerous features that users can employ to customize their own unique experience and way too many to detail in this article.

Blummy

Using Blummy users can add small widgets called “blummlets”, which will provide rich functionality to the bookmarks that they choose to save or share with others. JavaScript is used to provide the blummlets, so if you do not like using JavaScript, then you might want to steer clear of this tool.

Notifyr.org

This is an amazing free tool that allows its users to stay notified any time their favorite website, blog or news feed is updated from around the world. It works with any website and the updates are sent via email.

TravBuddy

This is an excellent website to visit any time you are in the mood to travel, because this user-generate, content-rich Internet travel resource contains travel tips, suggestions and information that are shared among other world travelers like you. Discover the best places to visit, the best places to dine or shop and much more, before you even leave for the airport. TravBuddy is like a personal assistant that makes scheduling your trips a breeze.

Omnidrive

Omnidrive allows users to aggregate not only all of their desktop files, but all of the user's files and data from different web applications within a single storage space. Users can access all their files and data from anywhere and share with other users or by email. Users can publish music, video or photos to the web or link to them from within forums, blogs or websites, thus making this the perfect desktop organizers for the information junkie or office professional that demands the best organizing tool on the market.

Despite this as far back as 8 track tapes people have shared duplicated recordings with their friends and the music merchants didn't blink an eye. The main concern was music piracy from distributors and seedy producers. They considered the sharing as a promotional impact on their sales. Which I believe to be true. I know that probably 9 times out of 10, I went and purchased the actual record because I liked what my friend taped for me. And the same with my friends. Inevitably they would buy the music I shared with them.

So in those years many record companies and artists saw this as a way to increase revenue and exposure. Let's say you sold 100,000 Cd's and from that 40,000 people "shared" 60,000 copies. At first glance one may conclude " Oh my we just lost 60,000 potential sales." Keep in mind that "potential sales" is a subjective term. Technically speaking that does not mean you lost any money. In fact you didn't lose any money because you did not give anything away. Still some artists considered the 60,000 copies as losing money even though there is no way of quantifying that. Then if you consider that as a direct result of those shared tapes you sold 30,000 more copies of your record than you can say you gained an additional 30% boost in sales. It is almost like the people advertised for you at no cost to you.

In fact pharmaceutical companies have practiced this for years on top of their commercial advertisement. Suppliers give Doctors closets full of medicines to give to patients knowing that the Doctors will than in turn prescribe those medicines too people who responded positively. You never hear a pharmaceutical company deny the effectiveness of this method.

As years progressed however things changed in the minds of some. In the "old" days you didn't share music with that many people but the computer files multiplied the music sharing in an enormous percentage. That is when bands like Metallica started screaming foul play. On the other hand "old schoolers" viewed this just a larger arena that would accomplish the same results as before. In fact some artists like Phish would put their own files on line for people to download. They claim that this increased their sales and popularity.

Two very interesting aspects of the computer development hits me like a brick though. In terms of record sales the Record Label stands to lose the most money from people not buying a record they put out. Their royalty is the largest piece of the pie. They did not seem to have as adverse of a reaction as the artists who were staunchly opposed to file sharing. Obviously the fact that on line download services charge a fee shows that some felt there was a balance in there somewhere. Of course you can still share a file with a friend or find free downloads. By and large though it seems that many people who download music still end up buying the Cd. Yes many feel they sell more Cd's because of P2P file sharing.

Except the newer generations do not have the same attachment to a Cd as in days gone by. So the second point comes front and center. With MP3 players, other digital players, and satellite services a physical product is less desirable then ever before. So this debate will continue on into the future as more kids of coming generations do not even listen to Cd's anymore.

In theory there will one day be no need for a recorded product in hand. You will play your digital player at home, in the car, and carry it around and play it in you ear. So the downloading industry will explode even more. Some say that record companies will then have less expenses in releasing material since they may not have to press a Cd and ship it out for sale. But how much will they charge for a full blown digital product?

Should prove to be interesting.

But, if you do a Google search for "free file hosts" you'll get 4,980,000 results. So, you must think, which of these shall I use? Or maybe, you don't... but, none the less, if you want to share a large file, or a small one, you'll need a nice site to host your files.

Rapidshare

Rapidshare is a German company, that has been around for a while. The main advantage of using Rapidshare is that the average download speed (for a premium user) is about 1 megabytes per second. So, if you were to download a 100mb file it would take about 100 seconds. Not a bad deal if I may say so myself. But, there are 2 bad parts to this. The first, is that to download from Rapidshare effeciently you have to be a premium member, which costs about $50 for 6 months. The second, is that the maximum file size is 100mb. So you have to use "split-archives", which are basically compressed RAR archives that are split into multiple pieces that you have to have together to decompress. So overall, if you need to share that large powerpoint, or Halo 2, Rapidshare is one of the best ways to go.

Megashares

Megashares, I must say, is one of the coolest hosts I have ever seen. Megashares lets you upload a file that can be up to 10GB large (using the custom uploader), or 1.5GB large using the standard uploader. You can also purchase "link cards" that allow you to download files of any size, quickly. But without a link card, it takes forever to download a large file. But, Link Cards are cheap (about $20 for 6 months) so Megashares is a great option if you have a little extra cash hanging around. But the main disadvantage is that your files have to be downloaded at least once in 5 days, or 5 times in 25 days.

GigaSize

GigaSize is a fairly nice file host, without that many ads or strings attached. With a free account (it's free xD) you get to host 600mb per file, which isn't that bad. I could store my entire picture collection with that much space. Also, your files stay hosted for 90 days without a download, which is the same as Rapidshare, but you can only have up to 2 (with a free account) downloads at once. Which is ok, I guess. But the thing that really makes GigaSize a decent competitor is that it allows you to gain "GigaPoints" which you get 1 per each file download. After you get enough of those you can upgrade your account for a certain amount of time. Rapidshare has a similar service, but you need far less GigaPoints than Rapidshare Points to get a premium account.

Friendly Files | FileHo

When I first saw Friendly Files, I thought "Oh wow! Unlimited file size, sweet!". But then thats where my problems started... I tried uploading a 500kb file to the site, and it took about 3 hours to do so (yet my upload speed is about 512 kbps). So the only way I could get a file uploaded was to do it via FileHo.com. But then, after I went through all of that trouble. I found out that I would have to download it in Internet Explorer. And if that wasn't enough, I would also have to download and install a download manager called "ADS Technology", which I thought was a little much to ask for a 500kb file. So, I recommend against using Friendly Files, "cause it"s not that friendly.

So, if you need to share Crysis, or Halo 2, go with Megashares. If you need to share that photo of you and your nephew to your grandparents, use GigaSize. If you need to backup your software (or download other "software backups") use Rapidshare. And whatever you do, do not use Friendly Files/FileHo unless you plan on downloading things in Internet Explorer using an unknown download manager.

With izimi, there is no limit to the type of file you can share. If you'd like to share a picture, a movie, an MP3, a zip, a rar, it's all possible. You can even use izimi to post images and sounds to your blog, or anywhere else on the web.

Your recipients don't need any special software to view your content, other than a standard web browser, since izimi serves your files direct from your own PC, so files that you wish to share don't need to be uploaded to any central service.

You can choose whether the file you wish to share is public to all, which will make it available on the izimi social networking website and added to the search engine there… or you can choose to make your file sharable only through private means, which means only the people you directly give the link to may download that file.

Izimi also comes with shell integration, which means instead of having to open the client each time you want to share that file, you can simply right click on it, select one of the several options for izimi from the menu that pops up, and izimi will do the rest. It'll even generate the link for you to give to someone else.

Aside from the sharing features, izimi offers a great tool to see all the files you're currently sharing, organized into types. The file browser is well thought out and easy to navigate, with all of your files being readily accessible, even if they are spread out on your computer. Any time you wish to unshared an object, you can simply delete it from the list of shared files, and it will no longer be accessible.

The only down-side to izimi is that since your computer is the file host, it will need to be on 24/7 to allow your users access to the files you wish them to have. If your computer is turned off, or the Izimi service shut down, your files are still archived and displayed in the search engine, but an offline message will be displayed to let users know your computer is currently offline.

Since Izimi doesn't place any restrictions on the type of content you can share, there will undoubtedly be adult content that may not be suitable for children to view. Izimi offers a filter that turns off this content, which must be activated in your account preferences.