Think peer-to-peer file sharing, and what comes to mind is massive, Net-wide distribution -- legal or illegal -- of songs and movies. GigaTribe puts the same technology to a different purpose: It lets you share selected files securely among your "tribe," whether that means friends and family or colleagues at work. The members of your tribe can search and download files of any size from the folders you've given them access to on your computer.

In Europe, where the service is called TribalWeb, people often use it to play music stored on their home computers while they're at work, or to transfer contents from an old PC to a new one. Other uses might include sharing pictures and videos of your kids with relatives, showing video walkthoughs of a house to potential buyers, and collaborating with your band to produce music recordings.