Sendoid (YC W11): Finally, Sharing Big Files Isn’t A Huge Pain

Missing from the article (and the linked summary of other sites that do this) is letscrate.com, which does it so well that I'm not even interested in looking at sendoid. It's dead easy, and my clients understand and remember the name after I say it once.

I like the emphasis on sending rather than hosting. I think the Drop in DropBox makes sense for sharing folders, but I don't think it makes sense for sharing individual files. There are services for hosting different types of large files, like Vimeo, DropBox, GitHub or just a web server. Secure transfer of files is a different problem from the user perspective IMO.<p>I also like how they've went through the trouble to actually make it more powerful than (most of) the competition, by allowing direct connections. (Sure, AIM supports it but it's brittle, has a confusing UI, and requires more coordination between users.)

Excellent service! I tried it and it's very simple and easy to use. I'm curious... how does one initiate a P2P transfer between two computers using just browser technology?

Hate to do a me too post, but I'm going to anyway. I made a very similar app for a weekend project back in early march of 2009. <a href="http://www.fileinaflash.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.fileinaflash.com</a> I used TFTP as the transfer protocol and it's not encrypted like Sendoid, but it works. Ultimately, although it costs next to nothing to run, I couldn't think of a good way to turn it into a business so it's just been sitting there for the past 2 years or so. Sendoid is <i>way</i> faster and prettier than what I made though. Great implementation. Good luck!

Also, we are aware certain rare network configurations break things. Network technology is a finicky beast. In particular, symmetric NAT seems to wreck the setup for the direct connection. Definitely working on solutions for getting around these problems (I've got a couple ideas I'm hoping will work). If anyone hits connection issues I'd love details on your network/OS/browser so I can document things more completely and try to get solutions out there. You can harass us directly at feedback (atsign) sendoid.com.

Awesome service!<p>One major request: Please create an API.<p>So many startups/services need a good way to upload large files efficiently. It takes a lot of effort to create an file upload feature that works and provides a good UX across browsers/platforms. We would use it for Mugasha (artists upload large audi files) and would pay for it.

it actually works. not sure about the mechanism but well done guys.<p>what I like most about this startup is that they provide file sharing service without actually incurring any storage costs.

1) "[ ] Set a Password [ ] Reusable Link?"<p>Should have &#60;label&#62; tags on the text.<p>2) When you click "Set a Password" it should set focus to the input. I couldn't even tell it was an input box, I thought it was just a gray box. Style changes could help too.

Neat technology, but I'm a bit worried about having to leave the browser window open before/during the transfer. I accidentally close tabs all the time, I wouldn't want to do that in the middle of a long transfer.<p>I'm going to give the service a shot for a few weeks though, maybe that will turn out to be a non-issue in practice.

From the FAQ: "Files never touch or pass through our servers."<p>Peer-to-peer transfer has some speed benefits, but completely avoiding a server-based fallback seems more problematic. The sender needs to be online when the recipients are downloading the file. People increasingly use laptops/tablets that spend much of their life sleeping (as opposed to always-on desktops). Am I missing something?

Can you merge the ideas of sendoid desktop client with a pinch of dropbox, so we can sync folders with other computers, other people's computers (multiple folders, multiple computers) without a central server?<p>i.e. sendoid, but semipermanent links and folders instead of files.

Assume that I want to send a large file to multiple recipients. Does your P2P technology mean that it works like torrent, each node will contribute some of its bandwidth to uploading or that the file will be sent directly from my computer to each of my recipients ?<p>Edit: How does it compare to <a href="http://www.bittorrent.com/dna" rel="nofollow">http://www.bittorrent.com/dna</a> ?

Very smooth, interesting use of RTMFP.<p>Couple of thoughts; you might want to consider a conditional note somewhere that Flash is required for those without.<p>Selecting and sending multiple files worked perfectly/instantly on my local network, though I could not select a folder.<p>I noticed that the list of successfully transferred files on the receiving end is partially hidden/obscured by a fixed height div. Also, files in that list are not autoamtically selected; it seems safe to assume the recipient would want to select and download all (rather than having to manually select or check the box.)<p>Good work, and good luck!

Interesting concept never thought to do it via a website.<p>I don't know if its me or not, however when I click the "Choose files to share" in Chrome 10.0.648.151 on Win 7 it does not do anything.<p>Good work, going to try the desktop client :)

I wish it could work for me. I love the idea of sharing directly with PCs in our network. Our setup is that we are travelling with my wife and constantly sharing files , now we use dropbox for that, but that means outside connection that relies on slow wifi. if your tool worked - it would be genius<p>unfortunately, it doesn't and sharing between Windows 7 chrome browser -&#62; Mac .. just getting Waiting for the peer.<p>I can't say more specifics about network topology as its a hotel wifi.

What prevents URL wardialing? 5 digits, radix 36 = 60 million URLs (e.g. "hg4ba" ). Do you rate limit? Will you add more digits as you get more active shares?<p>It is nice that the key is short enough that it's easy to remember and enter manually (esp. for any smartphone apps in the future).<p>To answer my question: there's an option for setting a password. The UI for that should be improved for sharing multiple files with the same password, but there's no need to prevent URL guessing.

I'm not sure about their support for really large file sizes, but lately I've been really digging Receivd for file sharing.

Very nice! I wonder what your revenue model is going to be, if it's OK to ask that early in the game?

Congrats Zac! Works like magic :)

A (non-programmer) friend of mine has been bugging me to do this for years.<p>So, one anecdotal data point in favor of your idea :)<p>(and one example of a missed startup opportunity for me, but I really don't find the time between the 8 to 6 job and 20 hrs/week university)

Nice work. Met you guys before your YC interview. Congrats on the launch!

The Sendoid app doesn't seem to be working behind a proxy. Is this going to change anytime soon?

Please, could anyone explain how Sendoid implemented in-browser P2P streaming?

iPad version please! I know there are, um, some certain problems there ... but the need exists, especially with video editing. (I have ~2GB renders needing transfers that Dropbox can't handle.)

This is what drop.io should have been all along!

Wow this is super efficient and was much needed.

I like to use isendr.com

How different Sendoid is from Tonido?(<a href="http://www.tonido.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.tonido.com</a>)<p>With Tonido you can right click any file or folder and it will create an URL for the resource. You can share the URL with anybody for download. There is no limit on file size, no uploading - completely private and secure.