File-hosting service DivShare quietly launched a video-hosting service this morning. Designed to help users share short video clips, DivShare is taking a slightly different approach, letting people upload video files, up to 200MB, which can then be shared on social networks, blogs, and Web sites. Users can upload files anonymously or register so they can keep track of every file they've ever uploaded to the service. (Those file, according to DivShare, will "never" be removed.) Each time you upload a file, you're also given a direct download link that can be shared with others.
I wouldn't typically write about a service update like this one, but DivShare's flash video quality is pretty good-looking at 560x420--which is almost up to VGA resolution, the native size for video capture on most digital cameras. Files uploaded to the service will stick around "forever," which is a claim I take about as seriously as unlimited storage.
DivShare also recently launched Groups, a service that lets users band together to share files related to common interests. This might sound like a front for illegal file sharing (which Webware doesn't support), but there are already some neat groups that have formed, including a world travel group and one for publicly licensed e-books. All files are hosted on the service, and similar to Flickr's group feature, there's a centralized pool where users can dump their files. Each group can also get their own custom URL and private-access options.
I've posted an example video below. Grab the original here.
Related: Wikipedia's comparison chart of file-hosting services.
Jubii is a new service that attempts to provide an all-in-one solution for Web communication and sharing. It combines e-mail, contact management, instant messaging, VoIP, and file hosting into one app. The big question is, whether combining these things together provides a cohesive solution that's better than individual Web services. In short, the answer is no.
Jubii centers around its e-mail platform, which uses a simple tabbed interface with two separate in-boxes. E-mails from people on your approved contact list automatically get sent to your private box, whereas others make their way straight to the public. Creating new e-mails is fairly easy, but there's no way to search through old messages. Instead Jubii uses tags, which is great for photos, just not with words. Assuming you're willing to tag every piece of mail or correspondence you get, it might work, but that's quite an assumption and will never work as well as full contextual searching like you get with Google's Gmail.
Jubii's other hook is as a file sharing service. You're given 4GB of free storage as your own virtual drive (10GB if you're one of the first million to sign up). You can share these files with other Jubii members or send a download link to non-Jubii members via e-mail.
The IM client in Jubii looks fairly straightforward, but it wasn't turned on for our testing account. It's all based around a contact list, which is linked to your e-mail. Like Google's Gmail Talk client and Yahoo IM, your buddy list resides in the corner and provides status icons for Jubii users when they're online. If you don't feel like typing, there is a built-in VoIP telephony service. It can be accessed from your e-mail in-box and provides free landline to landline telephone calls during the beta.
Jubii is an interesting idea but essentially it's been done before either by other e-mail services or Web file storage companies, just not in one place. Jubii wants you to give up your current services for them, but there's a lack of cohesion, which makes it a tough sell. With collaborations like Zoho and Omnidrive, and Google increasingly integrating Web services, it's hard to imagine switching to something that doesn't already tie into half a dozen tools. Maybe Jubii will get like that someday, but it's not there yet.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
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