Sendoid (YC W11): Finally, Sharing Big Files Isn’t A Huge Pain

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/21/sendoid-finally-sharing-big-files-isnt-a-huge-pain/

by pr0zac • 15 years ago

146 90 15 years ago

HardyLeung• 15 years ago

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?

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

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.

staunch2• 15 years ago

Which is a relatively recent addition to Flash.

arkitaip• 15 years ago

Would love to read more about your solution. Am I correct to assume that your business model will focus on licensing this technology?

wrl• 15 years ago

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

jodrellblank3• 15 years ago

Wikipedia claims "RTMFP will not support file or document sharing.[citation needed]". Ha.

Well done, that's a great idea.

imx2• 15 years ago

Congrats Zac! Works like magic :)

benatkin• 15 years ago

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.)

quartz4• 15 years ago

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.

staunch2• 15 years ago

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.

quartz4• 15 years ago

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.

lubos• 15 years ago

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.

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

Yeah, we dig that part of it too.

shawndrost2• 15 years ago

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.

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

I dig Crate, but we don't really do the same thing. letscrate.com is an really awesomely designed and implemented cloud storage provider. Sendoid.com is an in browser file transfer method. I wouldn't consider us competitors (at most very indirectly) and think more than anything we complement products like Crate or DropBox.

sahillavingia4• 15 years ago

Agreed. Want to talk privately sometime (email in profile)?

shawndrost2• 15 years ago

Hmm... I see that it's implemented differently, but aren't they accomplishing the same user task? Fundamentally, they're both solutions to the "this file is too large to email" problem. Or am I missing something?

imx2• 15 years ago

sendoid avoids storage/bandwidth overhead ... from now on letscrate is "old school"

tjarratt2• 15 years ago

Crate is really great, and I definitely like their UI a lot more, but Sendoid really knocks it out of the park in terms of speed and security.

tptacek4• 15 years ago

Tell me more about how this solves security problems? (I'm asking, I don't already have an opinion). Why can I trust this service with (say) a zip file full of source code?

sahillavingia4• 15 years ago

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.

shii• 15 years ago

So good you guys are blocked at the local library.

I see it as validation and a compliment, well done.

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

I'd have done the same thing. And yes, I upvoted your shameless plug. ;)

skbohra123• 15 years ago

Looks very good. Found a small bug - At the pricing page I see a logout link, though I am not even logged in.

bvi2• 15 years ago

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

whyleym• 15 years ago

Really like both Sendoid and LetsCrate - good work guys. Just to shamelessly plug another link - a project that i've been working on (for the past 6 months) aimed at super simple file sharing : http://www.filepigeon.com - hope you don't mind the plug - thought it was related and it's something I've been working on for a while !

AlfaWolph• 15 years ago

Not very useful as only 50MB is too close to what one can send via Gmail. Anything larger than that I've been using http://www.streamfile.com (150MB, which beats all of you. And it was created by an HN'er before it sold, I think).

I just miss my drop.io.

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

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.

vtail• 15 years ago

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

quartz4• 15 years ago

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

yesimahuman• 15 years ago

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

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

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

huntero• 15 years ago

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.

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

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.

kissickas• 15 years ago

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

ianl• 15 years ago

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 :)

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

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!

lyime2• 15 years ago

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.

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

You have no idea how badly I want to do this. Trying to figure out how to make it work is definitely on the list.

sahillavingia4• 15 years ago

Check out Crate's API? http://letscrate.com/api

andymoe• 15 years ago

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.

lyime2• 15 years ago

Not really what I am looking for. The backend itself is fairly trivial. Its the end to end experience that is painful. Mostly on the client side.

ctdonath• 15 years ago

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.)

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

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

codemechanic2• 15 years ago

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.

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

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.

codemechanic2• 15 years ago

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

dami• 15 years ago

Wow this is super efficient and was much needed.

lamnk• 15 years ago

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 ?

bjtitus2• 15 years ago

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).

Vic-nyc• 15 years ago

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

thirtytwo• 15 years ago

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

skyfallsin• 15 years ago

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!

podman• 15 years ago

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!

zhyder• 15 years ago

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?

quartz4• 15 years ago

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...

jodrellblank3• 15 years ago

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.

pr0zac17• 15 years ago

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.

forcer2• 15 years ago

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.

forcer2• 15 years ago

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

jcapote2• 15 years ago

I like to use isendr.com

jcapote2• 15 years ago

Nevermind...it redirects to sendoid now, guess it's the same thing.

leek• 15 years ago

Sendoid is iSendr.

bvi2• 15 years ago

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

GFischer• 15 years ago

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)

NSMeta• 15 years ago

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

jodrellblank3• 15 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2352211

snsr• 15 years ago

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!

jongraehl• 15 years ago

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.

Sendoid (YC W11): Finally, Sharing Big Files Isn’t A Huge Pain

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