Site: YouTube.com Category: Photo & Video

YouTube is the most well-known video service on the Internet. YouTube lets anyone share videos online, either from their hard drive or recorded using their computer's Web cam. It uses Adobe Flash and a simple video player that starts playing videos right away.

YouTube has paved the way for a variety of other services and evolved its own services with new features such as user profiles, video rankings, and a system that lets anyone reply to a video either with text or another video. It's also introduced some controversial features such … Read more

Site: Ustream.tv Category: Photo & Video

uStream is a video-broadcasting platform that lets anyone with a Web cam and a fast connection create their own live video show. It mixes a video stream with user chat, asynchronous commenting, and places for show creators to post archived clips and links to their other work. It's completely free to use and has been a launch pad for people looking to create video shows with no professional equipment or experience required.

What makes the service especially useful is that it blends live and archived footage seamlessly. Users can watch a show … Read more

Site: Messenger.live.com Category: Communication

Windows Live Messenger is Microsoft's instant-messaging service. Once called MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger is a chat client that also works with Yahoo's IM protocol. Users can text and video chat, as well as make calls and send SMS text messages to telephones. It also has a shared file storage system that lets users swap and store files.

Windows Live Messenger is available on several platforms including mobile phones. It's even been integrated into Microsoft's gaming console, the Xbox 360. All versions require users to sign up with Microsoft's … Read more

Site: Picnik.com Category: Photo & Video

Picnik is a browser-based photo editor. It feels similar to a desktop application with top and side navigation, and instant previews of any effects or edits. Picnik can grab photos from your hard drive, or online photo hosts and social networks. It can also export any edited photos back out to these sites, letting you make changes to large files without having to download, then re-upload.

Picnik has two levels of service, both a free and premium one. The premium service removes ads from the site, and adds extra effects filters, fonts, and … Read more

Site: Digsby.com Category: Communication

Digsby is a free multi-platform, multi-protocol chat and notification client. It lets you connect to multiple instant-message services, e-mail providers, and social networks--all from the same application.

Digsby carved its niche this past year as being one of the first services to offer Facebook's chat off Facebook proper. It also added the capability to bring settings between various computers, giving users the same experience at work and home without having to worry about making changes.

Site: Flock.com Category: Browsing

Flock is a Web browser that's comes with social-networking features built-in. It uses the same rendering engine as Mozilla's Firefox, and can even install most Firefox add-ons. Where it stands apart is in letting users keep track of social activity on sites like Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, and others in a sidebar that follows them no matter what site they're on. It's also got e-mail notifications, a photo uploader, and a built-in blog editing and publishing tool.

Flock is currently in its second major release, and runs on Windows and Macs.… Read more

Site: Vimeo.com Category: Photo & Video

Vimeo is a video hosting and sharing site. Users can upload high-definition video that plays in a gorgeous wide-screen player with minimalist controls. One thing that sets it apart from other services is that it was one of the first sites to offer HD video. It also gives video creators the option to let registered Vimeo users download the original file to their hard drive for offline viewing.

Vimeo is also a social network, with a friends and subscription service, along with a way to both rate and share videos. This information goes … Read more

Site: iGoogle.com Category: Browsing

iGoogle is Google's customizable start page. Users can add any number of gadgets to their page that can be custom-tailored to link up with all sorts of Web services and serve as mini applications or newsfeeds.

One of the features that makes iGoogle especially neat is it can be customized with different themes that change by what time of day you're looking at the page. Users can create their own themes that go into the same directory that houses the thousands of developer-created gadgets.

Site: Apple.com/Safari Category: Browsing

Safari is Apple's Web browser. It's currently in its fourth version, which got Cover Flow-style bookmark browsing, history search, a visual bookmarks start page, and a large-size tab style that mimics Google's Chrome.

Safari began as an in-house replacement to Microsoft's Internet Explorer for Mac, which Microsoft didn't update or improve on at the same rate as it did for its Windows counterpart--and eventually dropped shortly after the release of Safari.

In 2007, Safari got quite a bit of attention for its inclusion as the default Web browser in … Read more