Receivd - beautiful, fast filesharing for everyone

by skyfallsin • 15 years ago

115 80 15 years ago

makmanalp• 15 years ago

> Unlike email, all photos and videos sent via Receivd are delivered at the same high quality resolution that your camera supports. No compromises.

What? Whose email client does this?

amahadik3• 15 years ago

That probably refers to the iPhone's options on sending a scaled version of the images it takes.

johns• 15 years ago

Windows Live Mail (the desktop client formerly known as Outlook Express) also offers resizing options when sending.

thekevan3• 15 years ago

Lotus Notes.

whatusername2• 15 years ago

I thought Notes only compresses/resizes inline graphics -- ie if you paste a screenshot into the email it will resize it -- but attachments it leaves alone. Could be wrong though.

amahadik3• 15 years ago

Can't wait to get an invite to start playing with this!

brendanlim6• 15 years ago

If you guys sign up with +hn within your email, we'll make sure to give you access right away.

amahadik3• 15 years ago

Done. Thanks!

tomrod• 15 years ago

what do you mean, email@domain.com +hn?

brendanlim6• 15 years ago

Enter in email+hn@domain.com and we'll give you access right away.

bjtitus2• 15 years ago

Gmail allows tagging at the end of the address like me+tag@gmail.com. This is what he is referring to.

avinashv• 15 years ago

That's really cool of you guys. I apologize for doubling my email, because I saw this right after.

Your product is slick. I can see myself convincing a customer to use this, which is not something I could say for Dropbox.

Animus7• 15 years ago

After 5 seconds on the site, I'll share my first impressions before they fade, because I think they could be useful.

In my nominal browser view, all I see above the fold is a logo the size of an elephant, a blank field labeled "Submit", and what looks like screencaps from iTunes.

wildmXranat• 15 years ago

That's not iTunes. It looks like their OSX client.

roryokane• 15 years ago

I think he knows that. He just saw “what looks like screencaps from iTunes” for the first 5 seconds, and afterward, he realized his mistake.

huhtenberg• 15 years ago

Uhm. So what is the difference here? The ability to easily share with pre-configured lists of people? The rest of what's outlined on a linked page does not strike me as something that wasn't successfully done before.

Genuine question. Consider it a lead for how to change the landing page for more clarity discussion.

skyfallsin9• 15 years ago

Thanks for your comment - much appreciated.

We're optimizing the landing page as we go along. The difference is the ease-of-use, and the ability for non-technical folks to pick it up really quickly and get started with sharing files with the people they care about in a few minutes. Not sure if you noticed, but the current landing page is not designed with hackers in mind (we understand we're posting on HN, but technical folks are not our primary audience).

rgarcia• 15 years ago

From what I can tell after signing up, it seems like it lets you essentially seed ("share" in non-hacker speak) your photos to a selected group of peers ("family/friends"). Pretty cool idea if those peers also become seeds, a la BitTorrent...

poshboytl• 15 years ago

It's a awesome app. This is the way I want, for sharing files. BTW, is it created by Macruby?

brendanlim6• 15 years ago

We didn't end up writing the Mac client in MacRuby. We considered it, but to be on the safe side we decided to just go plain Objective-C.

zachallaun• 15 years ago

I'm sure that it exists, but could someone describe for me the main point of differentiation between Receivd and a shared folder on Dropbox?

That is, what should be compelling me to download another application to do that which I can (seemingly) accomplish with one already installed?

I'm not trying to be simply critical, but rather just pointing out that, at least from the landing page, there isn't anything necessarily motivating me to sign up. (That said, as it's on HN, I'd love to sign up, if only to provide feedback!)

skyfallsin9• 15 years ago

We built Receivd to not just share files with our friends and family, but to have them share back photos and other stuff with us. Our parents and our friends', for example, cannot understand Dropbox's shared folders, but they're using Receivd to share photos they took with their kids. That's a big win for us.

We love Dropbox and use it everyday, but we feel that Receivd does sharing the way that most consumers understand. For example, people move stuff out of shared folders all the time, which deletes it for everybody else - just a consequence of the tech. We do know that Dropbox is killing it, and as loyal customers we're very happy for them and wish them well.

bdclimber14• 15 years ago

I don't understand how people that don't understand Dropbox shared folders would understand Receivd, a more complex app?

However, some people I share folders with do use it as a transfer mechanism and remove the files from it.

jedsmith3• 15 years ago

Sorry to be Debbie Downer, and a little bit off topic: when will the trend of dropping vowels from names end? Googling for "Receivd" autocorrects, and I doubt they're going to be expedient in fixing that. Domain names are now responsible for devolving English...

I need someone to hate for this. Was Flickr first?

crikli• 15 years ago

I've been involved with several projects that did this.

The motivation wasn't to sound hip and cool, but rather to find a domain name that some squatting piece of trash wasn't asking eleventy million dollars for.

akkartik• 15 years ago

There's no shortage of good domains that the squatters haven't gotten to. Just use combinations of two words, something obvious and easy to spell from sound.

I've purchased 2 domains in the past 3 years: hackerstream and readwarp[1]. Perhaps you think they both have something wrong with them. But I contend that they're both better than del.icio.us or receivd. (Too bad that isn't all there is to a project.)

[1] In general I've been pleasantly surprised at how much of the namespace is still available. Both times I thought up a name in the shower after a few weeks of building it, and was pleasantly surprised to find my first attempt was available. Take it, done, and "find a domain name" was never even on my todo list.

nischalshetty• 15 years ago

Domain squatters are to be blamed foremost for this. There are so many beautiful domain names with stupid ads on them as the landing page. Domain names should cost like at least a 100 bucks, wait, would even that stop them!?

brendanlim6• 15 years ago

Haha! I actually did notice it on Flickr first as well. If we could afford the received.com domain we would have gotten it :)

dstein• 15 years ago

I fear that in the future these mispellings will wind up being recognized as correct spelling of the words.

light3• 15 years ago

Recognizd!

aditya• 15 years ago

That's what Mark Twain (purportedly) said: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/twain.htm

nollidge2• 15 years ago

Don't you mean "recognised"?

Tyrannosaurs2• 15 years ago

Are they not also easier to trademark? You're likely to be the only person using them and made up words don't tend to have any prior usage or meaning assigned (thus avoiding the sort of battle Apple is going through with "App Store" right now).

nollidge2• 15 years ago

> Domain names are now responsible for devolving English

[Citation needed] on three counts:

1. What does language "devolution" even mean?

2. Is English actually "devolving"?

3. Are domain naming trends in any way related to that?

jedsmith3• 15 years ago

The sarcasm wasn't evident? I thought the ellipsis and last two sentences put it away that I was tongue-in-cheek frustrated.

As for point 2: yes, English is certainly devolving. I graded papers in college -- "u" and "lol" and "tho" being present in an academic paper is a worrying trend. The writing ability of the average college-aged person that I observed personally worried me about the future of prose, and educationally we're not doing anything about it (the guilty parties also don't care). Admittedly, my sample size is small, but I can't imagine this isn't the case elsewhere.

It isn't limited to English, either. My U.S. History class in high school did a hell of a job teaching me about the plight of Asian-American immigrants at Ellis Island in the 20th century (that was our first lesson), but completely skipped the 18th and 19th centuries. The new American education.

skyfallsin9• 15 years ago

We don't have screenshots up, but there's also a really hot iOS app in the works.

dglassan• 15 years ago

You need to label your input field better....all it is is an input field with a button that says submit. It's not very clear to people that they need to enter an email address

skyfallsin9• 15 years ago

Also, we're based out of Mountain View (no offices yet). Let us know if you'd like to sync up :)

sahillavingia• 15 years ago

Hit me up. Email in profile.

sidvis• 15 years ago

Been using the Alpha for the past few weeks, and the product is super slick and polished for the first release.

I'm not sure why people are talking about the landing page, domain name, and other irrelevant stuff. Dropbox is really good at syncing files across systems, but not that great for sharing files quickly and effortlessly. Receivd in my opinion is trying to solve this problem.

p09p09p09• 15 years ago

Hmmm mac only for now. I'd be able to try this out with Linux and Windows versions. I have a mac, but it usually sends files to non-macs.

What's the advantage over Dropbox? Does your service go through a central server, or is it more p2p? Or both? Are my files encrypted on your server? Storage or bandwidth caps?

scottshapiro• 15 years ago

I've been hurting since drop.io shut. This sounds like a good replacement.

EDIT: Functionality is quite different than drop.io and less anonymous in terms of sharing (though powerful for sharing with small groups or individuals). It would be great to get a private URL for each item shared, a la google docs.

brendanlim6• 15 years ago

Thanks!

You can actually get a shareable URL for each item you share. Just right click on a file and select Copy Public Link.

talmai• 15 years ago

Is there an option to share sensitive files w/out going through your servers? Just wondering....

khafra• 15 years ago

ge.tt has been my go-to for anonymous-ish large file sharing, lately.

nithyad2• 15 years ago

Have signed up! Waiting for the invite. My bro is tech averse and hence Dropbox averse. I always find it difficult to share docs with him. Hope receivd solves it for me!

skyfallsin9• 15 years ago

Invited! Email us at contact@receivd.com if you need anything at all :)

nithyad2• 15 years ago

Thanks. I would have missed it. Google didn't consider it important enough for it to be in my priority inbox

amnigos• 15 years ago

Waiting for the invite.

baltcode• 15 years ago

I need to be able to upload files from the *nix/OSX command line. Is that supported?

blasdel2• 15 years ago

The Mac app feels unfinished — connections, files, etc. aren't draggable, reshare doesn't work (can't even select the files), but all of that is stuff you'll obviously get around to.

I'm using it now, and it's so close to being exactly what I need, with two necessary pivots that seem almost predestined to happen from your current position. The current basis of it being an inbox for files is already on the right track, and something I haven't seen attempted before, but it needs a little more verisimilitude to email:

1) The requirement to invite / induce signup / confirm "connections" needs to be ruthlessly optimized out — I should be able to just send a file to any email easily, forming a 'weak' connection. Maybe they have to do a 3 second signup to download the file, but it needs to be all in one motion. This obviously brings up a ton of issues like how to display the now 4 types of connections and unsolicited files, but it's essential to you getting traction.

2) 'sent' files need to behave like a outbox — remember that one of the biggest uses of email attachments is just sending stuff to yourself. Really you should just implement that straight up, it's the biggest use I'd have, and one I think you would find yourself as soon as you get the iOS client going. The dropbox iOS app's UI is terrible for it (pick one photo at a time and wait), plus really the filesystem metaphor is all wrong anyway! I actually want the transactional inbox feel of email here. If you don't explicitly support this I'm just going to end up using it with a computers account and an iPhone account.

skyfallsin9• 15 years ago

Hmm, all of those things you described up top are working well for us - can you tell us what version of OSX you're running on? Also what version of Receivd are you using?

1. You can send a file to any email right now - once you invite an email, they'll be greyed out in the sidebar, then drag any files to them as you would with a confirmed user. They don't even have to signup to download the file. You can even add those folks to a list.

2. Interesting point. We'll think more about this.

Thanks a lot for your comments. Can we reach you directly somehow to figure out why you're seeing these issues?

blasdel2• 15 years ago

OS 10.6.6 (10J567), Receivrd 0.7.5 (16). I expect to be able to drag a connection to a list, and drag a file from inbox/connection/list activity/received lists and the "sharing activity" lists to all other targets (including outside the app). The Re-Share button has not lit up, which did not surprise me given that I can't really get a file into a selection state. If all this is working for you, I can just try updating / rebooting.

I can send a file to any email now, but there's a lot of sharp edges. You make me click through a modal sheet wizard to intentionally setup a contact first, there should really be an email textbox / fb friend selector / etc. in your app. The worst part about the current setup is that it forces you to first send a no-context invite email minutes before sending a meaningful "x has shared y with you" email. The first kind of email really needs to only ever get sent when a user is explicitly inviting other people to share with them, which is probably not going to be the default path.

My email is in the 'about' area of my profile if you want to reach me.

jlesk• 15 years ago

Do you also own recievd.com? I'm sure a lot of people forget "I before E, except after C."

brendanlim6• 15 years ago

We do, actually - it should be forwarding now.

notJim• 15 years ago

Feedback:

> Receivd - beautiful, fast filesharing for everyone

Everyone who has a Mac? Or everyone? I only see screenshots of a Mac app. There are sketches of other apps, but I'm guessing those do not exist yet.

“Real time file sharing” as a tagline seems kind of meaningless. Two reasons I don't like it: a) real-time seems overly technical, and b) real-time is implied. No one expects that there would be a delay (beyond the amount of time it takes to send the file.)

Finally, this seems like it occupies a weird grey area between dropbox and email. All the examples you give are things that I can easily do with email. If email proves to be too much of a hassle, I have to convince people to use something else, and teach them how it works. Between this and dropbox, why do I choose this?

Minor point: To look at all 4 screenshots in large-o-vision, I have to first click one, then close it, click the next, and so on. Arrows within the lightbox would be appreciated.

Also, I realize this sounds kind of harsh, but I don't mean it too—I'm just putting out there the first things that come to mind. I think there actually is room between dropbox and email, but you're going to have to work a little bit on positioning your product properly to define that space.

lars512• 15 years ago

Looks a bit different from Sendoid (http://sendoid.com/), but still, are they in competition?

ronnoch• 15 years ago

Will there be Windows support?

sceadu• 15 years ago

So.. dropbox + sync that always unions files from local source + interface for access control?

Seems like the functionality could be copied pretty quickly...

statictype2• 15 years ago

We're opening up Receivd to users slowly. If you'd like to get VIP access, please tell people about Receivd on Twitter and Facebook using the buttons below.

I got this message when signing up for access and I have to ask: Why would I tell people on Twitter and Facebook about this if I haven't gotten a chance to use it yet?

officemonkey• 15 years ago

Do what I did: post to Facebook, and put in your message that you're testing it out and this is just a test post, not an endorsement. Then wait for the email (mine took ~30 mins).

Do this at late at night (like I did) and delete your FB post after you get the email (like I did).

Alternately, you can go the whole +hn route described below. It took longer than the FB route, but at least you're not participating in marketing of a sight-unseen web service.

jessta• 15 years ago

I think the point is that asking a user to do this (even though they can get around it) is offensive. "Hey spam your friends and we'll give you free stuff" is starting to get too common.

skyfallsin9• 15 years ago

Others feel differently and are compelled to share just to get access since they like the concept enough. We did think about it quite a bit, which is why we removed the 'share to get bumped up in the queue based on your referrals' to 'just the act of telling your friends makes you important to us, and you're marked as a VIP in the db'.

Anyway, email+hn@domain.com gets you access today without having to share.

thekevan3• 15 years ago

Nice, but why would I leave Dropbox? Also, I like www.letscrateit.com for ad hoc sharing.

skyfallsin9• 15 years ago

Thanks for your interest, excellent comments and support! We're still giving quick access to HN users - append +hn when you signup (ex: user+hn@domain.com)

Receivd - beautiful, fast filesharing for everyone

Related Stories