I dislike FTP. It is such an old and stodgy network protocol. I also dislike free file transfer utilities. Transfer rates are slow and click-throughs / ads get annoying very quickly. There must be a better way to send files quickly and easily, right?
Now there is. Streamfile is an emerging startup with some pretty revolutionary technology in the file transfer space. Standard web-based file transfer services allow users to upload a file to a server and once the upload is complete, the recipient receives an email notification with a download link. Streamfile takes this concept a step further - a big step. As soon as you initiate a Streamfile file transfer an email is dispatched to your recipient. He or she can then click on a link to begin downloading your file immediately, even as you are still uploading it (hence the name “Streamfile”)! Needless to say, file transfers happen in much less time using this model; in fact Streamfile claims a time savings of up to 90% on its site.
What might keep Streamfile from getting huge? The revenue model.
The following post was originally written for BGR but I decided to pull it and publish it here instead after receiving some advice from a friend. Some people at Nokia are already a bit unhappy with me right now (according to a few friends who work there, and despite the fact that I had nothing to do with the ‘E71 incident’) and posting this on BGR would just throw fuel on the fire. As such, I’ve published it here on my lightly-trafficked personal blog. Why? This post is not intended to publicly “call Nokia out”, yet that is what it does when using the quick and sarcastic tone we adhere to on BGR. Instead, my goal is to get some clarification as to how the two covered instances referenced in the post are dissimilar.
Another reason I pulled it: The wording of this article lumps all Nokia employees together into one entity and that is clearly not the reality of the situation, nor is it my personal opinion.
Oh Nokia. We really do love you, even when you show some seriously alarming signs of schizophrenia. If it’s not too much trouble we would really appreciate a bit of clarification on a few things. You go crazy when BGR shows off the E71 and gets a tremendous amount of people across the world hyped on your upcoming handset. You discuss it at length both privately and publicly, and even openly discuss some of the legalities involved with leaked hardware using terms like market manipulation and trade secrets. Then, you pay a metric ton of cash to have your unannounced handset featured in the box office record-breaking film The Dark Knight. Right, that makes perfect sense. Forgetting the fact that 99.9999% of the people who see The Dark Knight are going to have no idea what handset that was they just caught a flash of and most of the curious ones will have forgotten to Google it by the time they get home from the theater, please explain this to us. Are the members of the marketing team that lined this up responsible for handling stolen property and exchanging trade secrets? They did, after all, hand a prototype of an unannounced handset to people outside of the company who in turn put the handset in plain view of the public. Are they manipulating the market? Does the fact that it’s not referred to by name, shown in detail or branded make it ok? We’ve got our coffee mugs ready; shoot.
Chalk this up as one more thing Fred Wilson has introduced to me. I’ve played with The Hype Machine briefly in passing on numerous occasions but this past week I decided to register an account and spend some time there. To say I’m glad I did is an understatement…
For those who haven’t yet heard of the site, The Hype Machine is a service that aggregates music posted on blogs and helps you search for, discover and listen to it. Music blogs have an incredible tendency to collectively find and host tracks that are very difficult to find elsewhere. In searching for an artist, I’ve come across b-sides and remixes that I have never even heard of before. There are also plenty of favorites there from mainstream and indie bands alike. Think of it as your window into more music blogs than you would ever care to subscribe to, accessible on a whim.
As for the Hype Machine interface, I do enjoy it but a fair amount of refinement is certainly needed. In terms of usability and technology application, it’s similar to muxtape (or should I say muxtape is similar to HM?) in that tracks are listed on a page and there is no real player interface. It’s not the most user-friendly design. There are some controls at the bottom of the page, but they are so tiny I often forget they’re there. As with similar services you can add tracks to your favorites list to be reviewed later and you can also “watch” other HM users (or blogs) and play their lists straight through. The site itself has a fun look and feel, though some of the organizational decisions confuse me a bit.
I won’t go into much more because I’d rather you just check it out yourself. I’m zacharye there and if you haven’t yet heard Nickel Creek’s cover of Toxic by Britney Spears, hit my loved list post haste… :)
As a general rule, sullying the focal statement of your advertisement with an asterisk is a horrible, horrible idea. What does it say to your (more cognizant) potential customers? “The most important point this company wants me to take away from this ad is likely mired in catches and clauses.”
In other words: If the focal statement in your ad is not entirely accurate (outside the world of advertising we might call this “a lie”), find a better focus or sell a better product.
Of course none of this applies to Apple because it has remarkably managed to create a [much-coveted] alternate universe.
Those of you who are staring at your monitor watching people wait on a line, perhaps I have something a bit more thought-provoking to occupy your time. Long before I was a marketing guy, or a writer, or a tech guy, or a blogger, or whatever it is that I am today; I was a musician and lover of all things music. I loved listening to music, I loved creating music and I loved admiring music. While it has been ages since I’ve actively composed anything, there is still almost nothing that I enjoy more than stumbling upon a new artist or band that I enjoy.
Several years ago a song by a group called Electric President caught my attention and so I did some digging. I’ll spare you the details but I am now a huge fan of Ben Cooper, half of the duo that make up Electric President. He is a very active musician who has undertaken (and is still involved with) a great number of projects and so I have had no trouble finding plenty of content to keep myself busy with. Radical Face (Cooper’s solo project), Iron Orchestra and Unkle Stiltskin are among his other projects. Perhaps what I enjoy most about Cooper’s work, beyond the music itself, is that the bulk of his songs are journeys as opposed to standard verse, chorus, verse, chorus, etc. This meandering format does not work for all who embrace it but it works quite well for Cooper. In terms of popular music, this is a concept much more common in eras past and one of the key elements that first drew me to Pink Floyd, perhaps one of my favorite bands still to this day.
