Docstoc, the professional document network, has launched a pair of new features that help transition the site from primarily a document sharing platform to a personal document archive as well. The features, dubbed MyDocs and Sync, allow users to quickly upload their files to the web, where they can be quickly accessed from any computer that supports the ubiquitous Flash plugin.
MyDocs is essentially a dashboard for users’ documents, not unlike an online version of Windows’ My Documents folder. Users can skim through their files as thumbnails, search by keyword, sort each document into online folders, and modify each doc’s privacy settings. Most impressive is MyDoc’s Preview feature, which allows users to rapidly skim through full versions of their documents using Docstoc’s Flash-based Document viewer. In Preview mode, Docstoc displays a list of thumbnails down a sidebar and presents the document itself as part of the main window, allowing users to quickly browse through their documents. In practice this worked surprisingly well – documents opened within a few seconds (oftentimes faster than they would on the desktop), making MyDocs a viable alternative to the traditional My Documents Folder.
As part of today’s release Docstoc is also launching a new Sync client, which is available for Windows and Mac. The client runs in the background, automatically detecting changes in files in designated folders on the desktop machine and uploading them to MyDocs. Docstoc CEO Jason Nazar says that Sync isn’t meant as a replacement from the many backup sites already on the web. Instead, it’s meant to help keep Docstoc’s MyDocs section populated with the most up-to-date documents, so users can quickly browse their files from any computer on the web.
As part of Sync, Docstoc is also including a “My Public Documents” folder, which further streamlines the site’s document upload process. To upload a document, users need only drag their files into the special folder, and sync will automatically upload the doc to the user’s linked Docstoc profile.
Docstoc made its debut at TechCrunch40 and launched in October 2007. Since then, the site has grown to 200,000 registered users and sees around 2 million visitors monthly. Docstoc’s primary competitor is Scribd, a document sharing community with a similar Flash-based file viewer.
I’ve only messed around for a minute or two but so far I’m very impressed. It is intuitive and very functional and doesn’t seem to lag at all. I can’t wait to test the Sync tool on my Mac.
If anyone is interested in this technology, I would like to recommend dropbox (http://www.getdropbox.com/) as a better, more natural, approach to this commonly faced problem. I’m not advertising the product, I simply feel it is executed in a better fashion.
In my experience in looking at this space Dropbox is a great solution (as is YouSendit). But DocStoc’s feature set is much broader in what it is trying to achieve. It’s worth checking out.
I just tried it out and sync’d up my docs in less than 5 minutes. Lightning fast interface…… impressive
Mobile access is the crucial element for me when choosing a document storage/folder sharing. Whatever I sync, I want to be able to get it from my work BlackBerry or my iPhone. At the moment, Live Mesh is simply the best especially now that their mobile portal (http://m.mesh.com) is live.
Docstoc doesn’t let me get anything from my mobile. With the 5GB I have with Mesh it’s just better than anything else. it’s pretty sticky – i now simply store all my photos and personal docs (resume, monthly expense sheet, etc.) on Mesh and access it wherever i am.
I’m quite surprised not to have seen anything in TechCrunch about m.mesh.com but I’ve got a sense that’s because mike prefers writing about more exciting stuff like how much traffic comes to googlegeeks.com from Chrome.
Actually, I too like LIve Mesh, for both its file storage and remote PC control functionality. However, that 5GB limitation is too restrictive.
I agree, Douglas. I’m maxed out on my 5GB. I would probably need about 10GB just for my documents, 12GB for my photos and some 15GB for my MP3 collection.
PhotoSynth, for instance, supports 20GB already. I’m guessing the Seattle Monster would increase this 5GB limit eventually. Keep in mind that Mesh is only a Tech Preview. Once it reaches beta I hope they’ll increase it.
The problem with Mesh is that it just too easy to upload many documents. DocStoc let’s your upload unlimited number of files (at the moment) but they would never be able to scale it to millions of users. That’s the sad thing about all these cloud start-ups. There’s no chance any of them could scale to the sizes of Schmoogle and MSFT and they end up with products that are built to remain small.
In any case, Schmoogle’s absense from the market is strange. Where’s that GDrive everyone was waiting for? It will be interesting to see if MSFT can get enough traction before GDrive gets the market for themselves.
I just leave my PC on at home and use P2P sharing in Live Mesh. So there’s effectively no limit. Works well for movies.
I think you would be crazy to invest in any of these start-ups based around file synchronization.
Can uploaded files, particularly the private ones, be encrypted? I know the service is encouring its users to share documents. But, for MyDocs, I’d think that there should be mechanisms in place to insure privacy.
Foldershare is where its at. http://www.foldershare.com. No need to upload anything, just install the client and start syncing. They have a web client you can use to access anything from the web. I think it’s far superior to these other services.