Yesterday it was about FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and web hosting. Today its all about the web browser. Until recently it was impossible to store and share digital media unless you used an FTP client. It is true that applications like Flickr, Youtube and Facebook are a form of media-sharing; but this is not the same as serving large media files (ex. TIF, MPG-2 and AIFF) with the intent to take that media offline and/or transfer that same or altered media back to the web hosting server.
Media sharing is not a new concept, for over a decade people have used P2P (Peer to Peer) programs to transfer media. But what happens when the media is too big for email and your recipient doesn’t use IM, a torrent or an FTP client? What happens if its a time sensitive deadline and the client needs the files immediately? And what happens if someone attempts to download this media in a foreign land that blocks server inquiries from the country hosting the media?
For example, I was in mainland China for 8 months and during my stay I could not access our Wordpress blog nor any of our media hosted on our Godaddy server. Its an obscure reality, considering all the access we have in the USA, but it is something I have been thinking a lot about since I’ve been back in the states.
Its fascinating how less than 7 years ago, serving and storing media online was considered a complicated mundane task done only by geeky web masters and programmers. Now everyone, their mother and their mother’s mother, literally, want to share media. Since the dawn of the internet, FTP has been the method used to remotely transfer data files from your computer (client) and serve it up to a dedicated networking computer (server). Though it is a straightforward simple process, It remains a complicated mundane task for the masses.
An unexpected thing happened in the late 1990’s. The internet adjusted to a new set of rules. P2P applications like AIM, Napster, and Hotline made media sharing fun and accessible. People began to spend enormous amounts of time using P2P tools rather than hanging out on the dysfunctional ad-banner driven internet. People were downloading music, games, photos applications, and chatting. During this time the advertisers, consumers and programmers of the static and temperamental (multimedia) web were at a critical cross road.
Then between 2002-2005, something really exciting happened. Developers and visionaries fused the simplicity and collaboration of P2P culture and created an overlay for the mundane task driven internet. I firmly believe that the combination of portals like online dating sites and niché media sharing sites have helped to save internet culture as we know it. And most certainly they have forever reinvented the way people communicate and express themselves. People no longer need to learn complex programming nor perform data transfer protocols to present their media to the world. Today Its all about filling out profiles and posting, text, photos, audio, and videos through the browser.
Tomorrow we will examine some useful free alternative media storage sites.
- bendrix
Bendrix is the founder and Digital Media Strategist for Codedsignal, Inc. Codedsignal.com is The Digital Media Network featuring the following media properties: Beneath the Beat: Hip Hop | Beneath the Beat: Electronica | Digital Media Tips | Shanxi Nan Lu.
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Video | bendrix | 
January 10, 2009 5:49 pm | 
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