Orb takes aim at social networking

Orb Networks is targeting the social networking market by offering users of its free MyCasting service a "no hassle" way to share photos and home videos online.

Orb acts as a personal web server, making content on a user's PC available over the web. The company claims an advantage in that the service has no file uploading or file-size limitations and requires no special formatting.

Users select the photos and videos, designate them for sharing and Orb makes them available on a webpage with the user's unique URL.

"This is online social networking for the rest of us," said Herve Utheza, vice president and general manager at Orb Networks, adding that Orb's user survey cited 'sharing' as one of the top reasons people want to use the free service.

"It is for mums, dads, grandparents, soccer coaches - families who want to use the internet to share vacation photos, the latest ball game or just to stay in touch," said Utheza.

"We do not want to figure out the complexities of blogs, special web formatting or the file-size limitations of many other internet sites. We just want it to work, and with Orb it does."

Utheza touted the fact that the service does not require any additional hardware to work as a major benefit.

"You are basically using all of the stuff you already own - a PC and an internet connection - and you are ready to get started," he said.

The only downside is that users need to leave their PC on 24/7 in order to have access to their content.