E-mail is a critical communication path for most people, but it isn't, well, very awesome, to borrow a word from Fyreball Inc. founder Pete Parsons.

That's why the 42-year-old (pictured) and a handful of former colleagues from Bungie Studios, the developer of the first-person shooter game franchise "Halo," set out last year to create a method of sharing video, pictures, games, music, text and other content that goes beyond slapping a link in an e-mail and sending it along. Instead, Fyreball enables users to create essentially an instant personal blog page and share it with friends, who can comment on the content and share it with others.

"It's really content-based social networking, because a specific piece of content drives a conversation," Parson says.  "At the end of the day, e-mail is a great tool, but it can feel like work, and we wanted to take fun and engaging things and move them into a more playful environment."

Another cool feature of the service is the ability to track the trajectory of a conversation, not only through the comments made by recipients of a Fyreball -- something that would be cumbersome to do if you happen to be the 40th person to receive a forwarded video link --  but also through a nifty map that shows where across the globe a Fyreball has traveled.

The company was founded in early 2007 by Parsons and several other people who had worked on "Halo." After bootstrapping the company, they sought a first round of financing from Band of Angels and Alliance of Angels, who invested about $1 million in the 10-person startup last December. Band of Angels' Larry Kelly joined the Fyreball board as part of the Series A funding, which will be used for further development of the Fyreball beta product, Parsons says.

He hopes to drive revenue through a few different avenues. For one, Parsons views the Fyreball product as a potential content referral engine.

"The content I will get will be of a higher quality to me because I'm getting it from someone I know -- it's been selected for me," he says. "There's more of a chance I'll buy what I was sent."

Contextual advertising comes in here too, because it dovetails with the fact that someone who sends a Fyreball values the content, and chances are the recipient will feel the same.

"It's a great engine for people who want to market rich and interesting content," Parsons adds, noting that the technology would be valued as a promotional tool.

The tiny company is also striking up partnerships. This week it announced one with GameVee.com, a site where gamers can post and share clips of their video game play. Now there's a "Fyre this" button that enables the video clips to be shared in the form of a Fyreball.

As for the startup's future, it's pretty clear that a company such as Fyreball, assuming its continued success, will be acquired. The homemade application programming interface developed by the company could be bolted onto another company's Web site, Parson suggests.

But, not surprisingly, he is quick to say that Fyreball was not built to be acquired.

"I go to bed thinking how we can make Fyreball awesome, and I wake up thinking how we can make it more awesome," Parson says. "I have enough to think about making ourselves better without thinking about how we might make someone else better." - Olaf de Senerpont Domis

See Pete Parsons' "Low Flying" Fyreball