Another great video from Billy Reid at VeryTasteful!

New web companies surface every day, but just as many disappear. To become popular, you have to be innovative and based in California. Here are five sites to keep an eye on:

1. Blogmusik- A France based site that lets you listen to music, free, using their flash player or embeddable player. Even though Blogmusik doesn’t have the rights to play most of the songs they host, they still have a chance to become popular, especially among the MySpace crowd. Blogmusik’s music selection is extensive, but if you can’t find what your looking for, you can always upload it to the site. Registering, saves playlists and ratings for listening later on another computer.Why it will become popular? It’s like having your iTunes library accessible wherever you go and best of all it’s free.

2. Vimeo- A video service and social network that moves away from video hordes like YouTube. The site design is simple and a refresh to all the cookie cutter video sites out there. Vimeo is more focused on users making friends and sharing video, than finding the next viral hit.Why it will become popular? It’s a mix of two extremely popular areas of the web, video and social networking.

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After messing around with my site today I noticed my site was transferring content to Muffinnation.com. I Googled the mysterious site and found nothing that could tell me what it’s from or purpose. I went to Muffinnation.com and it shows some muffins with the phrase “The Revolution has Begun.” Does anybody out there know what this is? Viral marketing or just my stupidity?

The Apple USB power adapter, which used to be included with every iPod, is great for charging your iPod when your not near a computer. When you are near a computer the adapter sits, alone. To make use of the lonely adapter, I started using it for different things.

Charge your Xbox wireless controller- If you have the rechargeable batteries for the Xbox 360 controller, then you’ll now they don’t last very long. With the USB adapter you can charge the controller, without having to run the behemoth known as Xbox. Have a USB 2.0 hub? Charge more than one controller.

A nightlight to keep the monsters away- USB keyboard lights are cheap and usually never used, but when connected to the USB adapter they make a perfect nightlight in any room. (Makes you look really nerdy.)

Charging your cell phone- If your phone charges through mini-USB then your in luck. Instead of carrying different chargers you can carry the adapter (and a cord). I have found that some phones don’t recognize the adapter, but the amount of other features out weighs this one.

The Apple USB power adapter is more than just an iPod and iPhone charger, it can be used for any USB device that doesn’t need to connect to a computer. Spending $30 bucks may be expensive for an adapter, but when you see what it can do, it’s well worth the price.

I don’t like celebrity news, if you can call it news. I especially hate celebrity news sources that purposely exploit people, for their own business success. TMZ is a perfect example of a site that succeeds from human exploitation. I checked the Alexa traffic rankings for TMZ.com and found something very interesting.

Don’t get me wrong though, celebrities have their problems, but for TMZ to better themselves from scandal/exploitation is unfortunate. TMZ gives the web (especially blogs) a bad name.

Watching the Lindsay Lohan mess on TV is annoying, but not nearly as annoying as Internet banner ads. Someone has decided to cash in on both and create this amusing (yet weird) Lindsay banner ad titled “Celebrity Surgery.”

Found a funny web banner? Send a screen grab to me by clicking on the “contact” tab (above).

Finding a high quality (desktop) wallpaper can difficult and can surrender your computer to spyware. InterfaceLIFT does away with annoying pop-ups, hidden spyware downloads, and even having to login. InterfaceLIFT, like Flickr, relies on users to submit high-res photo’s to the site, that are then free to download by anyone.

Looking for the right size? InterfaceLIFT has a great selection of sizes to fit any gadget, from widescreen monitors, PSP’s, iPhone’s, to 1080p wallpapers for HD televisions. InterfaceLIFT also has icons and OS themes (mac & windows) for even more modification fun.

InterfaceLIFT is a great wallpaper site without a catch. It used to be plagued by sluggish load times, but at the moment the site is nimble. InterfaceLIFT is by far the best desktop wallpaper site I have ever seen, try it out.

Found something better that InterfaceLIFT? Not possible, but put the site in the comments anyways.

Youtube has become the perfect place to get your “fifteen minutes,” but if you are wanting more there are plenty of video sites. Here is a list of online video alternatives:

Veoh- Instead of banking on viral video, Veoh offers higher video quality, which is great for television shows and video podcasts. The flash player is surprisingly quick and the site design simple, yet still pleasing to the eyes. At the moment Veoh is lacking in content, mostly populated by trailers and video podcasts, but with page views already beating MetaCafe it won’t be long.

Aniboom- A truly niche video site for user created animations. Specific content like Aniboom is the just the start, expect to see more niche video sites pop up in the future (is that good or bad?). The site design is a little on the bland side and is in need of a refresh. Content on the site is great (if you like animation) and it’s just as easy to lose track of time. Aniboom is the “Youtube” of animation, but I don’t think it will ever become as popular as Youtube.

Ustream- Live video is the next generation of online video. Ustream lets anyone stream their life live and the player is embeddable so “anybody” can watch you. The site is well designed, but the video player could be bigger (bandwidth is $$$). Ustream has set itself up to be the “Youtube” of live video, it just needs more people willing to stream their life (or a show), live.