I ran across an interesting file sharing site whalemail.com. The intent of this site is to make it feasible to share large files via email. The way the system works is that you use your browser to upload a file to the site and then type in a list of email addresses. The site then sends an email to each recipient with a link to the file that was uploaded.

Of course, files are not really being shared via email, rather the site facilitates the sharing of links to files.

What are the benefits of using a site like this to share video? Simple: video files are big. In fact, they are too big to fit in a typical email message. As such, the obvious way of sharing video (as an attachment), just isn’t practical. These link-sharing sites may be an alternative work-around for a traditional DVR user to share video files.

Why save video into the network at all? There are several benefits. First and foremost, video that is stored in the network can be made available to users through a high performance Internet pipe. Typically a network storage site has significant Internet bandwidth and connectivity. What this means is that the video will stream or download faster and more reliably.

There is a significant security problem with using this style of sharing. Stay tuned tomorrow for more details.