Michael's Place

Om Malik recently wrote an article entitled File Sharing is the new email in which he compared the latest breed of peer-2-peer applications for sharing files. While I understand the need for a bold, attention grabbing headline, I figured, especially since I haven't written in a while, I'd point out why these applications are not a replacement for e-mail nor necessarily the best way for the average user to share files.

For starters, let's examine the ways the article above discusses for sharing, as well as Multiply.

	Email	Flickr/YouTube	Shutterfly/Kodak	P2P Apps	Multiply
Barrier to entry	None	Sign-up	Sign-up	Download, Setup, Configure	Sign-up
Audience	Your Contacts	"The World"	Your Contacts	Your Contacts	Your *Real* Network
How to Share	Select, Upload	Select, Upload	Select, Upload	Select, Many behind the scenes uploads	Select, Upload
Communication	Disjointed / Fleeting	Comments	Comments	Disjointed / Fleeting	Discussions

Barrier to Entry: Perhaps email's last advantage is everyone has it. Anyone can send an email with 10MB of attachments, and chances are, regardless of how disgruntled the recipient is, they'll open the attachments and see the pictures. The web-based solutions generally require a simple registration. But the P2P apps require both parties to download and install applications. People may download a required application such as a web browser. But with all the alternative solutions for sharing files, good luck getting mass adoption with this relatively high barrier-to-entry.

Audience: As Mr. Malik wrote in his article "There are websites like Flickr and YouTube, of course, where users can post photos and video -- but those are designed for material you want to share with the world, not just a few friends or family members." The other solutions are limited to sharing with those whose email address you posses.

Only Multiply lets you share with your real social network. By real I mean people you are truly connected to in the real-world as opposed to on a site like MySpace where your network has 70 million people in it because every user is connected to Tom. Lots of people over the age of, say 25, may ask, "Why do I want to share with my network... people I don't know?" First of all, there are tons of people you do know that you simply don't have their email address. Do you posses the email address of every one of your college friends that you simply lost touch with? What about every cousin?

Second, there are a ton of people you don't know that really, really care about your stuff. Some of my favorite examples involve my mom. I'm the proud father of a 7 month-old son which makes my mom the typical proud grandmother who loves showing off her grandson. With Multiply my mom's friends (that I don't know) get to see my pictures of my son despite the fact that I don't have their email addresses. Another example is that when my friend from kindergarten (through today) G.J. posts pictures of his family, my mom who witnessed G.J. growing up too and would love to see these pictures, gets to. It's awesome and this magic is unavailable anywhere else. (Of course, you don't have to share everything with your network; you can share with just contacts or individuals for more privacy.)

How to Share: Most of the solutions involve selecting photos and uploading them. The upload step is a little more transparent with email, but whether waiting a few minutes for photos to upload to a web-site, or for an email to go out, it's the same thing. With the P2P solutions you still have to select the photos to share. The big advantage of the P2P solutions is that you don't have to upload something...but this advantage diminishes as bandwidth speeds increases, and for the most part people generally don't need to share full high-resolution files. (Update- it was pointed out to me that even with P2P, files are still uploaded from the owner's PC. It happens behind the scenes but everytime time someone else wants to see the files which could tie up bandwidth at an inconvenient time for the sharer.)

Communication: All the applications discussed involve some mechanism for notifying the people you want to share with that new files are available (with only Multiply allowing you to go beyond your contact list). With email this initial notification step is inherent, and the P2P applications reviewed by Mr. Malik are building their sharing tools around email or IM-like processes. The problem is that any communication that results from email or IM-like solutions is disjointed and fleeting. For starters, it is separate from the photos. Getting a reply like "You look great in this shot" is meaningless without the shot....especially as time progresses and the initial email with the photos was deleted. Secondarily, if you send pictures to a dozen people via email, some will "reply-to-all" and some just to you. Some that reply will quote the original message, and some won't. A few people. A few replies. A big mess.

The other web-based solutions do allow people to add comments to photos, but nobody (other than perhaps the owner of the photos) gets notified. This hinders communication. If I post pictures from a party for my friends on Shutterfly and my friend Dave replies today "That party was a blast" and tomorrow my friend Peter replies "Dave, what were you thinking with that outfit?" nobody will know what Dave was thinking because Dave has no way of knowing a new comment was added. Is he supposed to constantly go back and check every album or video he ever looked at?

Multiply's message board not only notifies people when content is added, it notifies people when replies are added as well. This creates discussions as opposed to a handful of comments. And since these discussions can involve your whole social network and not just a few contacts, they are more interesting and exciting. More people that care about me as well as care about Peter and Dave - their friends and family that wouldn't be aware of my pictures on another site - can take part.

Thus far, I've focused on why Multiply is better than email for sharing photos and videos. But since email, like Multiply, is primarily about communication, for something to be considered "the next email" it should really succeed at communication outside the context of sharing. That'll be the focus of Part Two.