Another website has hitched a ride on the social-networking train. But this one puts a fresh and innovative spin on the mania with six degrees of separation. Multiply uses the web to collectively stitch a network of people you know and trust, without trying to increase the network with people you don't know. Instead, it gives you every sort of online tool for simply communicating with that core group of connections.

So what is Multiply all about?

Multiply lets you share your blogs, videos, and photos posts safely, and get more of your real friends, family, and friends-of-friends discussing them. You invite your friends and family to Multiply, and they invite their personal contacts. You eventually dig up connections with each one in your social network. Multiply's Inbox makes it easy to share your lives with more of the people you care about as it engages you in all the discussions around the content being posted.

Multiply makes your social network much like facebook or other sites of this type. As you set up your account, you send a message to people you recognize asking them to join. They in turn invite others and so on. You can maintain a track of the various members and how they're all linked. If they give you access, you can browse their personal portals as your network grows.

You can set every item you post for public or private viewing. Multiply makes it more convenient to only share specific content with certain contacts.

Multiply also offers cross-posting. This means you can post a single blog entry to Multiply and different blog sites at the same time.

For example:

1. Blogger
2. LiveJournal
3. TypePad
4. Facebook
5. Twitter
   
   

When you allow cross-posting, Multiply can automatically identify new entries you've written on each of these sites and post them to your Multiply account at the same time. Likewise, when you post your latest blog entry on Multiply, it will automatically post to the other sites, unless you opt not to.

Multiply is also different in that it takes numerous common web services—blogging, online calendaring, photo-sharing, and so on—and rolls them into a single convenient personal portal. A discussion group allows you to exchange messages within your network. You can set up blog-like online journals, and sort out get-togethers via an online calendar. You can even post movie reviews and recipes.

There is no overall limit to the number of photos, videos, blogs and other posts you can upload to your free Multiply site. The only exception is that video uploads are restricted to 100 MB or 10 minutes. You can upgrade to Multiply Premium which allows you to upload bigger videos and high resolution photos, which will all be stored permanently.

Thanks to its architecture, it's exceptionally effortless to involve others and build a small community. All this with Multiply, and it's free. For that they get two thumbs up.