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Interest in file storage or file sharing?

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by smorty71

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One of the features we are thinking about for later in the year is Groups. You will be able to form groups around a topic or a geographic location. The group will have a message board and other features to enable communication among the group members.

One of the many possible features that has been kicked around is file storage and/or file sharing for group members.

I recently tried a really cool private, secure P2P app called Grouper that supports similar functionality. You can basically set up a private group and share files.

These are some very early ideas, so please let me know your thoughts.

9 replies

by house

Of course, I'm interested in the expansion of TR into such services. You are aware of course that this might promote membership and activity... but also degrade our reputation. I'm all for it, but I imagine your sponsors will do a double take.

Please make sure that you explicitly state that you are not responsible for any questionable activity that may arise. :) Just my opinion.

by oz_media

First of all, I think "groups" well, lets just call them "TR gangs" instead. You've been around here longer than me and know exactly what goes down here.

As for sponsors, they se eone thing when evaluatingsuch marketing ventures, CLICKS, BANNER IMPRESSIONS and DOLLARS.

More people= more clicks, more views and more money.

Sponsors happy, ethics I don't think comes into it, we are talkig business now, now IT or company ethics.

There are some pretty shady telemarketers too but it's a numbers game and in the end it all works out.

"Grouper, users can setup mini P2P networks and share amongst themselves. Also Grouper does not allow you to download music from other users, but it does allow music to be streamed from other users PC's. This would be just the same as going to friend?s house and putting on a CD."

SO I think house's fears may not apply, it's not pure MP3 downloading. Mind you, my new Mp3 walkman allows for a line input. If I plug into my notebok's headphone jack, I can reord anyhing coming out of it, streaming audio, etc. It's cool when watching live music DVD's, like Led Zep's Song Remains the Same.

You can get high quality (upto 320 bit) MP3 encoding of really cool live tunes that way, especially straight form remastered DVD!

I used it to record audio from a webcast when I was gettng ready to run out the other day. I took my walkman and listened to the webcast in MP3 format on my while I was out. SWEEEEET!!!!!

anyhow, sorry....I LOVE the idea, Grouper seems to be still in it's infancy now though, will it be trustworthy enough for all these mixed platforms?
Will TR be taking a risk of maybe miffing users with dodgy 3rd party code?

by oz_media

Ahem.....how about...you sitting down?

TR Radio!!!!!!!

We could offer tunes to work by (Grouper streaming audio from a public group), requests by peermail or a special logged in user request link, AUDIO CASTS and DAILY TECH NEWS from TR's top members and editors....and web develpopment staff!!! You could even promote popular discussions to draw more visitors as active members.

"You're listening to Smorty on REAL TR Radio!!
Real World, Real Time, Real IT and REAL RADIO!!
This is The Beatles...with Maxwell's Silver Hammer going out by request for Maxwell Edison"

Can you see the paparazzi?

If it got popular enough you could break out and link to it form your other related sites...ZDNET and CNET ?...if those are right.

You could everntually break into the internet radio market and get more sponsorship from existing and new sponsors, online ads etc. A huge market spurned form very little but some free software, to get started anyway.

Oh....what did I 'call first'?

DJ!! Program director etc. I can even get plenty of unlicenced original music together in a lot of genres, I get sent the stuff all the time! Plus have online radio affiliations.
Also trance is kinda cool work music, although not MY chosen flavour, and I have a line on all the free trance and LIVE ONLINE DJ's from around the world that you could dream of.

You may as well just start sending me blank cheques now!

Okay so I get a little over zealous with simple ideas but that's how I get ahead I guess, energy and ideas (sure as hell isn't typing skills!) .

And they are free...whether you like them or not! :)

OM

by house

I understand what you are saying. I wasn't thinking of music when I posted my comment though.

More clicks = better sponsorship... you're right on that one. I was thinking more along the lines of reputation, but you're right, business is business. I would love that option here on TR anyways.

by smorty71

My initial thoughts didn't really involve music (although I know it would eventually involve that). File sharing just seems like a natural extension of having an online group. Whether you are talking about work stuff or not, there always seems to be a need to share a file with someone (and e-mail is usually not the best answer).

I've been playing with Grouper a lot over the past week and I am very impressed with the feature set. And, as for their reliability, the guys behind Grouper are also the same guys who built Spinner.com (and later sold it to AOL for $320 million).

I also like the streaming versus downloading idea, too. While it avoids RIAA issues, it also means that the members have to stay active in order for the group to benefit. I've got a friend that I am about to disown for shutting down Grouper (and locking away his mp3 collection) when he's away from his PC.

Whatever solution we go with, I would really love to have much tighter integration with the browser and our site. For example, if you have members on your TR Contacts list, it would be great to be able to invite them to your group automagically (without having to manually draft an e-mail). Just click an "Invite" link.

Please keep the feedback coming. We're going to be thinking about this a lot over the next week or so.

Thanks,
sm

by oz_media

Anything that allows users to interact more is a definite welcome addition to any site. I think it will be great, again though, I am still weary due to the intacy of Grouper and how it is going to work with various systems, may open up a configuration debugging nightmare.

It would be WAY better with TR Streaming Radio though!!

by smorty71

Just to clarify, Grouper was just used as an example of a cool file sharing app. It may be that we go with something totally different.

Whatever we go with will need to be able to integrate nicely with the site so it provides as seamless an experience as possible.

by house

Am I the only one who wouldn't be interested in sharing music? I was thinking more along the lines of tech utilities. I would love the opportunity to discuss and swap my favourite utils. My concern originally lied with software swapping that may be editted, or with executables that have been "unlocked" so to speak. Who am I kidding anyways. Techs aren't born from within the restrictions of licencing. [i]Bring your ship - harrr!!! I reckon we'll see the loot!!![/i]

by smorty71

I was hoping that someone would stand up in the name of work-related file sharing :) I think being able to share utilities and other work-related files would be a really cool addition to the Community.

It could also be really interesting if we had these groups, which users set up, that could pull and share TR-created files that related to their group.

For example, when you set up your group, you could add some tags to describe your group ("security" or "wireless"). Based on your tags, one of the default shares in your group file sharing app could be of TR content (articles, downloads, discussions, member blog posts) that cater to your group's interests.

As the group's interest evolve over time, you could tweak the group tags to have the TR share evolve with it.

sm

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