Some Background..

Personal Facebook
Personal Soundcloud
Personal Youtube
Clocks Facebook
Clocks Bandcamp
Caecus Facebook
Caecus Bandcamp

Down The List (Part Two)

In this continuation of "Down The List", I am exploring some of the most popular and most visited file-sharing sites than content creators have easy access to today.  At number thirteen ranks Sendspace.com with approximately 4,000,000 unique monthly users.  This site allows users to sign up for free, enabling them to send files via the sendspace servers to other users at a maximum file size of 300MB.  There appears to be a limited amount of space for free accounts, but unlimited lifetime storage if you subscribe to the site's Pro or Pro Plus plans.  Once subscribed to a plan, users can send larger files  (4GB for Pro and 10GB for Pro Plus) at a limit of 100GB and 300GB per month, respectively.

To me, this service seems a bit steep in terms of cost, with the Pro plan being $8.99 per month while the Pro Plus plan is a whopping $19.99 per month.  Sure, once subscribed, the disappearance of ads, unlimited lifetime upload limit, and upgraded down and up speeds might seem to be well worth it.  However, the larger context of file sharing services currently available make it a bit obvious that this somewhat steep price is not the most effective.  What demographic requires 4GB per file to work effectively?  In my mind, it would seem that filmmakers would be best suited for this service as individual, uncompressed footage can get quite hefty, especially if said footage is shot at a higher resolution such as 1080p or 4k.

I will be continuing my "Down The List" series each week, detailing and exposing you all to the larger context of file sharing sites.  Stay tuned!

Down The List (Part One)

Among the file sharing giants, it is important to recognize the most popular options to understand how and where on the internet people are sharing their creative content.  Luckily, eBizMBA.com tracks insights for some of the most prominent services over the past few months, allowing for a benchmark of traffic.  This week, I will examine some of the less popular approaches, speculating on why they might not be as popular as others based on their current quality of service.  Let's get started.

At number fifteen we have filecrop.com with an estimated 3,000,000 page views per month. this service is closely tied with Rapidshare, a more familiar service to myself, which is barely ahead of filecrop with approximately 3,250,000 unique views per month.  Filecrop allows it's users to peruse the shared Megaupload and Rapidshare public libraries which hosted an array of information, unfortunately including pirated content from around the globe.  Recently, the creator of Megaupload, Kim Dotcom (yes, he changed his last name) was accused by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) of allegedly hosting and embedding over 500 million dollars worth of copywritten content on Megaupload.  I plan to talk about this conflict for another series of posts, however for now just recognize that the RIAA is responsible for the take-down of Napster, Grokster, Limewire, and EACH of these site's users who were responsible for uploading the content.

I find it interesting that the sites at the bottom end of this top fifteen list are more of less carcasses of what was previously one of the most popular websites in file sharing history.  Unfortunately, current intellectual property laws can get lawful content creators' services shutdown in the fight against privacy, a worthwhile discussion that I will touch on at a later date.

An Exposition

Content creators require flexible, secure, and user-friendly file sharing services that both seamlessly and effectively integrate into workflow in order to consistently complete projects in a timely manner.  Whether these professionals in the media industries are separated by city blocks or vast oceans, there is a proper expectation to have access to all of your project-based files wherever you go.  My plan is to expose you, the reader, to the vast variety of services in this ever-saturating market of either peer-to-peer or cloud-based file sharing.  Media professionals require peer to peer file sharing applications to both effectively and efficiently transfer files not only between professionals, but to clients as well.  There are a myriad of services available currently including Mediafire, Dropbox, and Google drive; however, these current services are not created equally, varying in both their security and connection strength.

On a personal level, I can attest to using a variety of file sharing services to facilitate collaboration, feedback, and continuity for various projects.  Given that I am, at any one moment, hundreds of miles away from my band-mates, these services are imperative for my continued creative involvement.  Due to my circumstances as a college student, I have also continually utilized free file sharing services: allowing me to compare and contrast the ease of use, security, download speed, and other aspects of these free, often cloud-based services.  Though my experience with file sharing is vast, I will try to maintain an objective and unbiased perspective as we explore the file sharing options that independent content creators have today.