When America Online tossed in the towel as a paid subscription service for its broadband users and vowed to wow the Web 2.0 crowd with its own free offerings, there were more than a few jaded observers who believed the venerable online service was coming to the party a tad late. Today, though, AOL showed that it still has some petrol in its creative tank with the launching of BlueString.



The service is designed to give Web surfers a single place to store, share and backup photo, music and video files, as well as create multimedia shows either individually or in groups.

And, of course, it's all free. Well, up to 5GB of storage is free. If you want more storage, say, 50GB, you'll have to pay $99 a year for it.

Here are some highlights of the new service.

• Automatic uploading of photo, video and music files to the service. You can upload files manually, too.
• Access files from anywhere you can get a Web connection.
• Share media with whomever you want.
• Embed media from the service into other locations like blogs and Web sites.
• Use the service's "String It" feature to collaborate with others on online shows.

I haven't had a chance to take BlueString for test drive yet, but Rafe Needleman over at c|net has and his initial impressions are favorable.