Sharpcast - Photo Sync goes mobile

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

[teaser]

While reading MobileCrunch, a spinoff of my favourite web2.0 blog TechCrunch, I came across a very interesting piece on 'Sharpcast', which you can find here.

Entitled 'Sharpcast is Synchronization 2.0', the piece talks about Sharpcast the company, their beta offering, and their future offerings - it's a highly recommended read.

In essence, Sharpcast have launched in beta the photos element of their product. Put simply, it syncs your photo collection from PC -> Online -> Pocket PC or Moto Q device. Sounds quite cool, but in use it is oh-so-slick. Sharpcast will be adding further types of data going forward, and i'm very excited about what the future holds for this new company!

I'll leave you with some quotes from MobileCrunch and Sharpcast themselves - please do check it out and let me know what you think! :)

P

[/teaser]

Organize Once, Access Anywhere

Easy as 1-2-3: Drag, Drop, Done.

* All your desktop photos automatically synchronized to the web, and vice versa

* Optional automatic phone syncing

* View and manage your collection from anywhere

* Work offline - no need to leave your home PC on to view or manage your photos on another PC or your phone!

* Changes you make anywhere, even offline, are automatically made everywhere, so you can pick up right where you left off

web image

Sharing Without Uploading

More sharing, less waiting

* A completely new way to share! Drag, Drop, Done.

* Create a contact for anyone you want to share with — then simply drag an album onto their name

* Friends can instantly view your photos on the web, or have them delivered right to their desktop with the Sharpcast Photos application

* No more waiting around for tedious uploads or having to go to the web to view shared photos

* If you add or delete photos from a shared album, those changes are automatically reflected in the Sharpcast application on your friend’s’ PCs too

desktop album

Transparent Back-up

Back-up without thinking!

* Your images and all metadata (captions, album names, etc.) are automatically secured online - you don’t have to do a thing!

* Recover your whole collection exactly as you had it organized by simply logging in to Sharpcast!

* Moving your collection to a new PC has never been easier: log into the Sharpcast application on the new PC and your whole collection is recreated automatically!

* No more burning CD’s you can’t keep track of to back up your precious memories

mobile image

Automatic Mobile Syncing

Cut the cord!

* View or manage your entire PC photo collection on your phone

* Changes you make on the phone are instantaneously synchronized with the web and your PC, and vice versa

* Take a picture on your phone and it’s instantaneously available on your PC and the web

* No more sync cables or tiny web browsers just to have your photos where you want them!

...There are a lot of good photo sharing applications out there and the differences between them aren’t so great that anyone but an experienced user would distinguish among them. However, if you’ve used the Sharpcast Photos Beta and you are paying attention you will see something that should excite you; regardless of which device you happen to be working with; mobile, PC, PDA, etc. you will notice that you have the exact same workspace across all your devices....

...Not so, Sharpcast. Treo users, especially will see this with the Sharpcast Photos beta - you’re not dealing with a stripped down UI that presents you with a long list of filenames and forces you to guess which file you want; no you have the exact same UI as on your desktop. Delete an image on your mobile and virtually instantly that same photo vanishes from all your other connected machines as well....

...Extend the functionality beyond photos to all the personal data on your mobile device and migration to a new fancier phone is suddently painless. Simply “Sharpcastize” the original device, take the new device and install the Sharpcast application, log in to your account, and within moments the information that would have taken you seemingly forever to have re-entered by hand is populating your new device almost as if by magic.

Backups will be fundamentally altered by Sharpcast too. No more need to run separate special backup software for the average consumer (Enterprises and people that need instant by instant data snapshots, security and granular recovery capability will still need to use other tools); Sharpcast’s ability to replicate exact copies of your information across any connected devices means that if you have more than one computer your need to have a suite of backup software and an additional harddrive to save data to is dramatically reduced. Further, recovery is as simple as installing Sharpcast and logging in....

According to the company, over the next few months they’ll be introducing the ability to “Sharpcastize” additional types of data beyond photos and they’ll also be developing wizards to support guided migration of data from device to device as well as other wizards to help users set up back-up strategies. Very cool, I’m waiting; impatiently.