
Sendoid (YC W11): Finally, Sharing Big Files Isn’t A Huge Pain - pr0zac
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/21/sendoid-finally-sharing-big-files-isnt-a-huge-pain/
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shawndrost
Missing from the article (and the linked summary of other sites that do this)
is letscrate.com, which does it so well that I'm not even interested in
looking at sendoid. It's dead easy, and my clients understand and remember the
name after I say it once.

~~~
sahillavingia
Thanks for the mention! A lazy link because I'll never miss a chance to
shameless plug: <http://letscrate.com/>

Excited to check out Sendoid though.

~~~
bvi
There's a limit in file size for the "free" plan (50mb?). What makes Crate a
better alternative to Sendoid?

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ericd
This is a total deal breaker for me. This is something that needs to work for
all files in order to be useful, and I'm not willing to get tied into a
monthly subscription for something so occasional and basic. This is the kind
of thing that people used to charge $5-20 one time for as shareware, not
$9/mo.

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benatkin
I like the emphasis on sending rather than hosting. I think the Drop in
DropBox makes sense for sharing folders, but I don't think it makes sense for
sharing individual files. There are services for hosting different types of
large files, like Vimeo, DropBox, GitHub or just a web server. Secure transfer
of files is a different problem from the user perspective IMO.

I also like how they've went through the trouble to actually make it more
powerful than (most of) the competition, by allowing direct connections.
(Sure, AIM supports it but it's brittle, has a confusing UI, and requires more
coordination between users.)

~~~
quartz
We definitely agree and think it's a huge area that's been overlooked. Files
keep getting bigger and it takes forever to get them up to hosted services.

We're hyper-sensitive about our data as well, and wanted to create something
that gives people built-in security and privacy but make it all super-easy.

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HardyLeung
Excellent service! I tried it and it's very simple and easy to use. I'm
curious... how does one initiate a P2P transfer between two computers using
just browser technology?

~~~
pr0zac
We built a reliable file transfer method on top of the peer-to-peer media
streaming technology used by Chat-Roulette and its clones, RTMFP.

~~~
wrl
what are you using as the server? it's my understanding that RTMFP was only
recently reverse-engineered.

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agazso
Not sure what Sendoid uses, but there is a project called Cumulus that
implements an RTMFP server in C++.

<https://github.com/OpenRTMFP/Cumulus>

Haven't tried it yet, but the code looks pretty good.

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podman
Hate to do a me too post, but I'm going to anyway. I made a very similar app
for a weekend project back in early march of 2009.
<http://www.fileinaflash.com> I used TFTP as the transfer protocol and it's
not encrypted like Sendoid, but it works. Ultimately, although it costs next
to nothing to run, I couldn't think of a good way to turn it into a business
so it's just been sitting there for the past 2 years or so. Sendoid is _way_
faster and prettier than what I made though. Great implementation. Good luck!

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pr0zac
Also, we are aware certain rare network configurations break things. Network
technology is a finicky beast. In particular, symmetric NAT seems to wreck the
setup for the direct connection. Definitely working on solutions for getting
around these problems (I've got a couple ideas I'm hoping will work). If
anyone hits connection issues I'd love details on your network/OS/browser so I
can document things more completely and try to get solutions out there. You
can harass us directly at feedback (atsign) sendoid.com.

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lyime
Awesome service!

One major request: Please create an API.

So many startups/services need a good way to upload large files efficiently.
It takes a lot of effort to create an file upload feature that works and
provides a good UX across browsers/platforms. We would use it for Mugasha
(artists upload large audi files) and would pay for it.

~~~
sahillavingia
Check out Crate's API? <http://letscrate.com/api>

~~~
andymoe
OK. It was cool the first three times you pointed out crate here and on the TC
article but now it's getting to be a bit much.

EDIT: I'll take the karma hit.

~~~
sahillavingia
I'm sorry, but I can no longer delete my comment, or else I would. I just
thought it could be of use. My apologies.

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lubos
it actually works. not sure about the mechanism but well done guys.

what I like most about this startup is that they provide file sharing service
without actually incurring any storage costs.

~~~
pr0zac
Yeah, we dig that part of it too.

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staunch
1) "[ ] Set a Password [ ] Reusable Link?"

Should have <label> tags on the text.

2) When you click "Set a Password" it should set focus to the input. I
couldn't even tell it was an input box, I thought it was just a gray box.
Style changes could help too.

~~~
quartz
Thanks for the feedback, we're really working to make the site as easy to use
as possible and you're right on about the set password input box.

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huntero
Neat technology, but I'm a bit worried about having to leave the browser
window open before/during the transfer. I accidentally close tabs all the
time, I wouldn't want to do that in the middle of a long transfer.

I'm going to give the service a shot for a few weeks though, maybe that will
turn out to be a non-issue in practice.

~~~
pr0zac
Thats what the helper app is for! Sits outside the browser and lets you send
and receive using the same technology without having to worry about the
browser thing. Will do resume and everything. Still just as easy to use too.

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kissickas
Sorry, but I can't find a link to the app. Do I have to install the browser
version first?

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pr0zac
The install button is the helper app! The in browser part should work
immediately with no need to install any other software.

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zhyder
From the FAQ: "Files never touch or pass through our servers."

Peer-to-peer transfer has some speed benefits, but completely avoiding a
server-based fallback seems more problematic. The sender needs to be online
when the recipients are downloading the file. People increasingly use
laptops/tablets that spend much of their life sleeping (as opposed to always-
on desktops). Am I missing something?

~~~
quartz
Nope, you're just describing two different use cases (real time transfer vs.
delayed transfer). Currently you can use the installable app and files will
resume/restart whenever either disconnected machine comes back online to
combat the often-sleeping laptops you reference.

The thing about persistence via storage is that now you're talking cloud
storage, and that's a pretty overloaded and over-served market with a race to
the bottom on price. We're fanatic about speed and privacy so we're p2p only
right now and we really love the potential for this tech. Ideally, we'll make
the persistence issue irrelevant rather than falling back to what we consider
outdated tech...

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jodrellblank
Can you merge the ideas of sendoid desktop client with a pinch of dropbox, so
we can sync folders with other computers, other people's computers (multiple
folders, multiple computers) without a central server?

i.e. sendoid, but semipermanent links and folders instead of files.

~~~
pr0zac
This is actually an extension to the idea we've considered. We are
implementing mesh transferring (similar to bit-torrent) and the idea was to
have a server act as a peer in the mesh. We are still trying to decide if its
something enough people want.

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lamnk
Assume that I want to send a large file to multiple recipients. Does your P2P
technology mean that it works like torrent, each node will contribute some of
its bandwidth to uploading or that the file will be sent directly from my
computer to each of my recipients ?

Edit: How does it compare to <http://www.bittorrent.com/dna> ?

~~~
bjtitus
Didn't know about BitTorrent DNA. Thanks for the link!

One difference I'd note is that DNA seems much better suited for mass
distribution while Sendoid is much better suited for sending individual files
(especially if you're on the same network, since you'd need to upload to a
server and re-download to get p2p going).

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snsr
Very smooth, interesting use of RTMFP.

Couple of thoughts; you might want to consider a conditional note somewhere
that Flash is required for those without.

Selecting and sending multiple files worked perfectly/instantly on my local
network, though I could not select a folder.

I noticed that the list of successfully transferred files on the receiving end
is partially hidden/obscured by a fixed height div. Also, files in that list
are not autoamtically selected; it seems safe to assume the recipient would
want to select and download all (rather than having to manually select or
check the box.)

Good work, and good luck!

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ianl
Interesting concept never thought to do it via a website.

I don't know if its me or not, however when I click the "Choose files to
share" in Chrome 10.0.648.151 on Win 7 it does not do anything.

Good work, going to try the desktop client :)

~~~
pr0zac
Can you shoot us an email at feedback(at)sendoid.com with some info on your
setup? Would love to get some more info from you so we can figure out what the
problem might be. Thanks!

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forcer
I wish it could work for me. I love the idea of sharing directly with PCs in
our network. Our setup is that we are travelling with my wife and constantly
sharing files , now we use dropbox for that, but that means outside connection
that relies on slow wifi. if your tool worked - it would be genius

unfortunately, it doesn't and sharing between Windows 7 chrome browser -> Mac
.. just getting Waiting for the peer.

I can't say more specifics about network topology as its a hotel wifi.

~~~
forcer
soo. Tried to install the desktop app on both W7 and Mac..but didn't help..the
transfer doesnt work..not good

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jongraehl
What prevents URL wardialing? 5 digits, radix 36 = 60 million URLs (e.g.
"hg4ba" ). Do you rate limit? Will you add more digits as you get more active
shares?

It is nice that the key is short enough that it's easy to remember and enter
manually (esp. for any smartphone apps in the future).

To answer my question: there's an option for setting a password. The UI for
that should be improved for sharing multiple files with the same password, but
there's no need to prevent URL guessing.

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thirtytwo
I'm not sure about their support for really large file sizes, but lately I've
been really digging Receivd for file sharing.

~~~
skyfallsin
Thanks for mentioning Receivd - we've been in early-access for a month now and
are growing pretty quickly. We do support large files, our last test with a
5GB+ dataset went swimmingly, and folks use it to share large photos and
videos everyday. You can take a look here at <http://receivd.com>

If you signup with +hn in your email, we'll make sure you get access right
away.

Sendoid - congrats on the launch!

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vtail
Very nice! I wonder what your revenue model is going to be, if it's OK to ask
that early in the game?

~~~
quartz
Sure, I can give you some info:

We're still discovering this space, but we've learned that there are a huge
number of use-cases in commercial sectors for secured, fast file transfer--
especially out-of-network transfers that don't require the receiver to be part
of the sender's existing IT infrastructure. Sendoid's tech is great for this.

Companies are having to pay out the nose for our kind of service right now
from enterprise providers. We don't think secured file transfer should be
expensive, and Sendoid is the first step to fixing that.

PS: If you have a company that wants to get involved with our beta program,
get in touch: corp@sendoid.com

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imx
Congrats Zac! Works like magic :)

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GFischer
A (non-programmer) friend of mine has been bugging me to do this for years.

So, one anecdotal data point in favor of your idea :)

(and one example of a missed startup opportunity for me, but I really don't
find the time between the 8 to 6 job and 20 hrs/week university)

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yesimahuman
Nice work. Met you guys before your YC interview. Congrats on the launch!

~~~
pr0zac
We appreciate your not repeating all the embarrassing things I might have said
that evening. ;)

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bvi
The Sendoid app doesn't seem to be working behind a proxy. Is this going to
change anytime soon?

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NSMeta
Please, could anyone explain how Sendoid implemented in-browser P2P streaming?

~~~
jodrellblank
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2352211>

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ctdonath
iPad version please! I know there are, um, some certain problems there ... but
the need exists, especially with video editing. (I have ~2GB renders needing
transfers that Dropbox can't handle.)

~~~
pr0zac
I have "methods" for implementing this stuff in iOS that I've been figuring
out the last few weeks. Its definitely on the way.

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Vic-nyc
This is what drop.io should have been all along!

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dami
Wow this is super efficient and was much needed.

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jcapote
I like to use isendr.com

~~~
leek
Sendoid is iSendr.

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codemechanic
How different Sendoid is from Tonido?(<http://www.tonido.com>)

With Tonido you can right click any file or folder and it will create an URL
for the resource. You can share the URL with anybody for download. There is no
limit on file size, no uploading - completely private and secure.

~~~
pr0zac
Can't find their send file immediately from the browser button? I don't think
my dad's gonna be able to use it without that.

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codemechanic
:). I guess your father can right click the files and folder get the link.

~~~
tjarratt
I think his point is that browsing to their website, it's not entirely obvious
how to quickly share a file. When you initially go to sendoid.com, their link
to share a file is the most prominent element on the page.

Having the native hook into context menus is great in the file system, but if
your users can't even install the app, what's the point? Having a dead simple
browser experience is easier for users because it's one less step to do what
they want to do - share files.

