Looking for an e-book, image, video, audio file or software? Fliiby is your one-stop shop for all sorts of files. The site is sort of like YouTube, in that anyone can upload and share files. And visitors can browse or search for files, many of which they can view online or even embed in their own site using Fliiby's Flash player.
Like any good file sharing site, a ton of the content available on Fliiby has probably been uploaded by users who don't have the rights to distribute said files. But there are also plenty of legit files including free and open source software applications, user generated videos, and images.
Fliiby's search engine could use a bit of work. For example, there's no way to sort results by file type. But you can also browse files by category, so you can sort of treat Fliiby like a used book store where nobody's bothered to alphabetize the titles. If you just scroll through without looking for anything particular, odds are you'll find something you're interested in.
Mixx is a new social news site that recently launched an invitation-only beta. The service looks and works a lot like Digg, and even has a four-letter name that looks like someone meant to type three letters but didn't lift their hand from the keyboard in time.
While Mixx obviously doesn't have the kind of enormous user base that makes Digg work so well, the site does have a nice clean interface and a few nifty features. For example, Mixx adds a personal home page. You can select specific areas of interest like news, politics, or technology. When you login to Mixx, you'll be greeted with a start page showing the top user-submitted stories in each of those categories. If you'd prefer, you can still browse each of category page individually.
Mixx has separate tabs for popular pictures, videos, or stories. But while you can see thumbnails of popular images, there's no thumbnail preview for videos, which is a little frustrating.
Another nice Mixx feature is the ability to create private groups. You can submit links that only members of your group will be able to see or vote on.
If you'd asked us a few months ago whether we thought there was room for two Youtube-for-documents style sites, we probably would have laughed. But then Scribd came along and showed that people really are interested in perusing interesting documents online and embedding them in blogs and other websites. And then Docstoc decided to tease us with a similar site geared more toward professionals.
While you can find pretty much any sort of document at Scribd, Docstoc has a focus on documents that can help with work. For example, users have uploaded forms for calendars, budgets, leases, invoices, and tax preparation.
We first got a sneak peek at Docstoc a few months back. But now that we've had a chance to peruse the site ourselves, we have to say, it's incredibly useful for anyone who needs a ready made form or two. Need to send an invoice for work you've performed, but don't have a template handy? Docstoc users have already uploaded dozens.
There's also a social aspect to the site. Users can create profiles and leave comments on documents uploaded by others. You can browse through the most popular documents overall or within various subcategories.
Docstoc is still in private beta, but we've got a few invitations to give away to the first 5 people who respond to this post. The invites are time sensitive so you'll have to respond and sign up today.
Update: Congratulations to our 5 quickest commentors! We're all out of invitations. But stay tuned, we'll be giving away invitations to a few more cool services in the coming days.
Microsoft has taken its user generated video site and added it to MSN Video beta. The site formerly known as Soapbox no longer exists as a standalone service. Instead, user generated video and professionally produced video will all be part of the MSN video service.
The new version of the site features a Soapbox-like video player and layout. That means you can browse for videos without pausing playback of the movie you're currently watching. If you want to view just user-generated content, there's a new tab labeled "Soapbox User Videos."
Here are a few other updates to MSN Video beta:
Videos you upload will be encoded for online viewing faster
Support or new video codecs and extensions
Updated RSS feed for displaying Soapbox videos in RSS readers with a native embedded player
Fullscreen option for Soapbox Embedded player
In many ways, we think the MSN Video/Soapbox site is easier to navigate than YouTube, and has higher quality videos. But the thing about user-generated video sites is that they aren't much good without content. And as long as YouTube has the largest user base, that's where you'll continue to find most of the videos you actually want to watch.
