I frequently need to send a file here and a file there to other people. I’m using this two services for this.

drop.io

This first is drop.io for quick and hassle-free uploading and sharing of files. Just go over to drop.io, create a so called “Drop”, define (optional) passwords for you and your guests, specify what they are allowed to do (just view or allow them to add files), and the lifetime of your drop. Finished. No account sign-ups, no email confirmations. And no need to tidy up afterwards, as the drops are deleted after the lifetime is expired. It’s that easy.

You can subscribe to RSS, email, or twitter updates of your drop, which can be stuffed via web, email, phone, and fax. Nice.

Downside: Your drops are limited to 100MB if you’re using the free service. Premium services are available, too.

Dropbox

The second service Dropbox has a slightly different approach. It also provides some sharing mechanisms, but it’s primarily focused on providing a local folder that is automagically synchronized between multiple computers. Just add a file here, wait a sec, and it is available on your second computer. Synchronization clients are available for Windows, Linux and OS X.

The files are regular files on your local computer and can therefore be accessed without using awkward browser upload/download forms, although a web interface is also provided.

What’s nice is Dropbox’s versioning feature: Older revisions of your files are available and can be restored. I wouldn’t use it for software development, but this is a nice feature for documents and such.

You get 2GB for free. Bigger dropboxes can be rented.

The data is SSL-encrypted on the way to the remote servers and stored with AES encryption,

What I especially like is dropbox’s escheresque 404 message :)

Update: arstechnica just wrote about dropbox, too.

This quote is from an interesting talk Clay Shirky gave at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco this spring. He discusses the common question where people find the time to participate in all the Web 2.0 stuff like Twitter, personal blogs, Wikipedia, and Facebook. He states that this is nothing more than cognitive surplus and that this number is actually quite low compared to our societies dominant “cognitive heat sink” — the television. 200 billion hours per year are spend watching television in the U.S., or 100 million hours every weekend for just watching ads (Don’t miss “Paying for your attention”)…

But contrary to television — which is basically just consumed — the entry level for actively creating new content, new concepts for participation, and new ideas is very low on the internet. Shirky argues that the “physics of participation” is like the physics of weather: A lot of the factors are know, but the output can’t be predicted very well. So a lot cognitive surplus will go into new projects and new ideas. and many many will fail, but some will evolve and finally succeed. Most of these projects were unthinkable some years ago and this will lead to a transformation of society. Towards a society where not only consuming of media is normal, but also producing and sharing. A society where a television set without a mouse for remixing content is considered broken.

I guess he’s right.

Transcript

P.S.: His talk is quite dense and very informative. I don’t consider this to be a complete summary. It’s more like an appetizer.