Gary Marshall expands on how to find friends and advertise yourself
Vimeo
Upload video and share it or embed it in your blog. Free accounts give you 500MB of storage and one HD video per week, while paid accounts offer unlimited HD.
SmugMug
Best described as Flickr for professional photographers, SmugMug's service isn't free – it starts at £20 per year – but it's a superb way to showcase photography.
Scribd
Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org and PostScript files are reproduced online with formatting intact. You can then embed the results in your own site or blog.
Ning
Can't find a social network dedicated to your specific interests? Ning enables you to create and customise one in a matter of minutes without costing a penny.
FriendFeed
FriendFeed brings all your social networks together into a single feed. The service supports Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, del.icio.us, YouTube and various blogs.
Funny Or Die
Will Ferrell's site is YouTube for comedy: users upload whatever they think is funny, with everyone voting for the best comic clips. If it isn't funny, it dies.
SnagFilms
Designed for documentary makers and viewers, SnagFilms provides a portal for over 700 movies and the ability to create custom movie theatres for any website. Filmmakers who contribute get an equal share of the advertising revenue.
Issuu
If you've seen the embedded articles on our website, you'll know that Issuu does an excellent job of displaying print documents in a web browser. Basic accounts are free, and you can share your documents on the usual social networks or embed them in your own site.
Bit.ly
Long URLs can be a real pain when you're trying to share a link both online and via SMS. Bit.ly is a brilliant way of shortening internet addresses to manageable links. The site also features advanced options that allow you to do things like track how many people have accessed your bit.ly link.
Pipebytes
Pipebytes gives you the ability to send files of any size through your web browser. The real beauty of the service is that the recipient can begin downloading the file while you're still uploading. Speeds aren't guaranteed, but the service is free and delivers secure and private sharing.
Slideshare
If you're still handing out printed notes after presentations, it's time you checked out Slideshare. This presentation sharing website enables you to publish Powerpoint and Word documents and add audio to your files. You can also use privacy settings to make the presentation either public or contacts-only.
JayCut
JayCut enables you to edit and mix audio and video clips. You can then either download the results to your PC or share the footage on YouTube, Facebook or MySpace.
Digg
So popular it can bring down entire web servers when its users visit en masse, the social news site enables you to share interesting links and see what everybody else is reading. A great way to find interesting stories.
Google Docs
Google Docs isn't really a Microsoft Office rival: it's designed for quick and simple document collaboration rather than attempting to be all things to all men. It's a particularly good method of working on projects where inputs from many different people are needed.
Windows Live SkyDrive
The storage bit of Microsoft's revamped online offering is pretty decent, delivering 25GB of online storage for free. You simply drag and drop each file across, and each folder gets a unique URL so you can send the link for others to access.
DropSend
We're big fans of DropSend, a service that enables you to share files of up to 2GB via its browser interface or desktop icon. Free accounts also come with 250MB of online storage.
