Webware100

Microsoft's Zune Marketplace saw a huge change in 2007 with the release of the second-generation Zune. Even if you didn't have the device, the layout and speed of the program was greatly improved and the marketplace interface completely redone. The folks who designed Windows Media Center for Windows Vista were behind the change, and the result is a program that was less like the strung together reskin of Windows Media Player from previous generation.

In order to get music or music videos off of the Zune Marketplace users must either must pay a monthly subscription for all-you-can eat … Read more

FixMyMovie is a service that takes your pixilated digital video clips and does its best to make them look better. The technology stems from MotionDSP's processing technology, which is similar to what's used in government intelligence operations to improve those dark and grainy security films--like you see in movies.

Most recently, FixMyMovie added the ability to create a single high-resolution 1,280x1,024 JPEG image from a 320x240 video. The company also is contemplating use of the technology to stitch together smaller frames into a wide panorama, to improve image tones to retrieve detail in bright highlights and … Read more

Amazon's Unbox service, once the bane of our very own CNET reviewers, has come a long way. The service lets you download movies and TV shows to watch on your PC or portable device. Through a partnership with TiVo, you can also rent and watch the movies on your TV without a computer if you've got a compatible TiVo device hooked up to the Internet.

What makes the service especially cool is its RemoteLoad feature, which lets you buy and download a movie to another computer. It's a distinctly competitive advantage to systems that require users to … Read more

Twitter is an online service that lets you broadcast short messages to your friends or "followers." It also lets you specify which Twitter users you want to follow so you can read their messages in one place.

Twitter is designed to work on a mobile phone as well as on a computer. All Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters, so each message can be sent as a single SMS alert. You can't say much in 140 characters. That is part of Twitter's charm.

In 2007 Twitter didn't come out with as many new features … Read more

Pandora is a music discovery and recommendation service. Users can listen to tracks via a simplistic player, and if they like or dislike a song they can vote yes or no on it. If they don't like it, the service will automatically skip it and move onto something else. If they do like it, Pandora will pull up tracks it thinks are similar in style. With enough use, it can effectively introduce you to all sorts of new music, and users can make their own radio stations based on personal tastes.

The service makes its money from advertisements that … Read more

YouSendIt is a file-sharing service. It allows receivers to get files by clicking standard URL links. Since YouSendIt stores files on its own servers, you have to upload what you want to share, but then you don't have to leave your PC on to allow people to pick it up. The hosted transfer model isn't as flexible as peer-to-peer sharing, but it is easier to use for both senders and receivers.

In addition to a free service, YouSentIt also offers three premium subscription plans for people who want to send larger files to more users. It also offers … Read more

Yahoo's Briefcase service is a far cry from the arms race of free and low-cost storage providers on the Web, but it's wonderfully simple. Yahoo gives you 30MB of file storage you can keep and store at no cost. Users can create as many folders as they'd like and dump their files in one at a time, or en masse via a Web uploader.

What makes the service particularly useful is that you set the access of each file and folder with different levels of privacy, meaning if it's time to send that 25MB folder of … Read more

Picasa Web Albums is Google's Web photo hosting service. Users get 1GB of free hosting, and images can be uploaded and manipulated using Picasa, Google's free desktop photo management application. Users who want additional storage can shell out up to $500 a year to bump up the hosted space to 400 times the size of the free hosting service.

We really like the integration between the desktop and Web application. Like .Mac and iPhoto, Picasa makes it really simple to take photos from your desktop and publish them online for others to see. We're also fans of … Read more

Live365 is an online radio directory with thousands of stations of free, streaming music. In addition to its free offerings, Live365 offers a premium VIP service that charges anywhere from $5 to $8 a month for commercial-free streams that have a higher bitrate.

You've probably listened to a Live365 stream before and not even known it. Its streams are used on software programs such as Windows Media Player and Winamp, as well as on hardware like TiVo. Mobile phone users can also install the Live3650 application that will stream music over their cellular data network if they're away … Read more