Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Glide Effortless to Compete in File Sharing Market

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sat Nov 05, 2005 07:26 PM
from the keeping-the-riaa-happy dept.
The Internet Technology
Dotnaught writes "InformationWeek is running a story about a new consumer application suite called Glide Effortless that's slated to be released in mid-November. Think of it as iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iCal, Mail, document sharing, shopping, and a few other apps all in one seamless application hosted as a service on the Web that could be accessed by any browser on any computer. It allows file sharing without the risk of illegal copying. It might prove a viable competitor to iTunes, if it works as advertised and if it can scale to handle millions of users."
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Glide Effortless to Compete in File Sharing Market 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • OK, fine (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hey Pope Felcher . . (921019) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:28PM (#13960198)
    In fact, Leka explains, the system is smart enough to identify copyrighted music that has been uploaded by users into the system.

    Err, how exactly?

    Does it listen out for generic beats, mixed with generic vocalizations of generic lyrics, flavoured out by massive over production?

    • Re:OK, fine (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AvantLegion (595806) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:35PM (#13960225) Journal
      Does it listen out for generic beats, mixed with generic vocalizations of generic lyrics, flavoured out by massive over production?

      You know, that would work far better than a Slashdot-posted joke should...

    • Most likely not. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CyricZ (887944) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:37PM (#13960235)
      I know you're kidding, but the fact of the matter is that they probably won't. They'll probably just scan for filenames containing a name of a famous artist or band. A threatening letter will be sent automatically, even in cases of non-infringement [com.com].

      • A threatening letter will be sent automatically...

        Why would they even have to do that? According to TFA, everything will be on _their_ servers. All they would have to do is have their "Brittany-BackStreatBoy-ETC" scanner delete any file they though was "infringing" and send the user who uploaded it an email saying "sorry, Charlie, we deleted your upload". Problem solved.

        The PHB's of this corp will probably convince the media companies that no copyright material is ever traded since it always stays on

    • Re:OK, fine (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Seumas (6865)
      Storing all of your private data on a stranger's computer for a fee, remotely accessible, granting permission to scan everything you have (so clearly it's only so private to begin with, right?) for allegedly copyrighted material (who knows how they know if it's copyrighted by YOU or someone else or if you're allowed to use it or if it's just a PHOTO of Metallica when you saw them backstage)...

      Hell, what could possibly go wrong?!

    • Re:OK, fine (Score:5, Funny)

      by 93 Escort Wagon (326346) on Saturday November 05 2005, @10:41PM (#13960903)
      "Err, how exactly?"

      Three words: Amazon Magic Turk.

  • Any browser? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ASUSanator (700145) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:29PM (#13960201) Journal
    Does it work in lynx? :P
    • Probably about as well as Windows Media Player on the desktop.
    • So, is anyone else getting tired of these Slashvertisement product announcements on the /. front page?

      Geez, go to Digg.com [digg.com] for all the up to the minute tech news that you're missing if you only stick around here (the press is already labeling it a "Slashdot killer").

  • Storing data on my own computer. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CyricZ (887944) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:29PM (#13960204)
    I prefer to store data on my own computer, for privacy reasons. I will not use these services for sensitive, private data, because I do not know who else has access to said data. And I see no point in using their service only for non-sensitive needs, while returning to my existing solutions for private matters.

    I doubt their service offers anything beyond what is already possible with a solid Linux or BSD setup, while costing far more and lacking the security I've come to expect.

    • Read... the.... f*cking... article...

      The software, disclosed in mid-October, is called Glide Effortless. It's a set of 12 applications for content creation, communication, E-commerce, and sharing. The apps are Glide Photos, Glide Music, Glide Video, Glide Docs, Glide AllMedia, Glide Contacts, Glide Calendar, Glide Timeline (Glide's search engine), Glide Mail, Glide Cast (audio, text, and video conferencing), Glide Share, and Glide Shops.

      (emphasis mine) The real hook is that they are talking to media cr
    • First- what is this 'private data' that everyone is so worried about? Kiddie porn? It's not like anyone uses Quicken anymore- you can get banking info on-line. So I always wonder what the heck is so private.

      Other than that, these on-line services provide a few advantages that typical desktop apps don't.

      Portability for one. It would be nice to move around anywhere, and always have my files and applications available to me (with a net connection). Home to work, and to my mom's house for the holidays with

      • Re:Storing data on my own computer. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by CyricZ (887944) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:50PM (#13960294)
        Financial information is the first thing that comes to mind. Anyone who is serious about investing, for instance, has a multitude of financial data that they need to store, and that often is best kept private.

        Then there is just personal correspondence that is just that: personal. I don't want other people to have easy access to letters I have sent to friends and family. For instance, I don't want others to know that my nephew James has testicular cancer, and may lose his genitals.

        You keep thinking about kiddie porn. Those of us who do not deal with such filth still do have many reasons to keep our data private. Services like these do not offer the privacy that is required, and even with their advantages, the security problems still far outweigh the benefits.

        • Re:Storing data on my own computer. (Score:5, Funny)

          by hoggoth (414195) on Saturday November 05 2005, @09:00PM (#13960520) Journal
          >I don't want others to know that my nephew James has testicular cancer, and may lose his genitals.

          Uncle Cy, I can't believe you just posted that.
          Dad's right, you are an asshole.
          Don't bothering visiting me in the hospital anymore.

          -James

          • Since you have that anti-privacy attitude, would you care to allow us to all access your personal computer? After all, if such personal information is just "noise", then I know you'd have no problem allowing us full access.

          • While the above post was marked flamebait there is too much truth to it. Data are very poorly managed behind doors for financial firms, hospitals and credit card companies in general. They have a very high layoff rate in the IT departments and the scale of the data they manage daily is overwhelming. Their IT guys are not the "money-making" group, therefore they are expandable... and so is their data.

      • Why not just use an app like VNC to allow remote connection to your pc?

  • TransMedia Corp (Score:5, Informative)

    by taskforce (866056) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:31PM (#13960210) Homepage
    The comparny who are pulling this off, http://www.transmediacorp.com/ [transmediacorp.com]. The link wasn't included in the summary nor the article.

    Personally, I think this looks very impressive, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

    • Er, "The document contains no data." Doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
      • As determined earlier [slashdot.org], it would appear that they run their servers off of Windows. That may be why their site is experiencing so many problems right now.

        But you're right, it does leave a very bad impression. I'm sure there are many users here now who will forever associate this company and product with a completely dead server.

    • Ill wait for them to go bust and get the open source clone / replacement.

    • Re:TransMedia Corp (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Texas_Refugee (258092) on Saturday November 05 2005, @09:42PM (#13960658)
      Are you kidding? This is the worst vaporware announcement I have ever seen. They can't even keep their webservers up. If some no-name startup can come out of nowhere and build what is described as 10 times more complete and complicated than anything I have ever seen before, I tend to think it is complete bullshit.

      If things like this exist, they dont magically ship completely formed. You hear about them for a while and then they slowly add features and scale up. From what I can tell from the google cache, there is not a single reputable technology person in the company, only a nobody CEO.

      According to his bio, he was previously a director at "RxRemedy" which apparently no longer exists. In fact that company was under investigation by the SEC according to a simple google search. Here is a link to the SEC investigation into the company that my google search for RxRemedy turned up: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp17650 .htm [sec.gov] (in the document, search for RxRemedy) So let's see, his only listed previous company was investigated for investor fraud.

      What a freaking joke. This man probably belongs in prison.

      I am amazed that slashdot would put vaporware garbage like this on their front page.

  • Zzzz (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rootedgimp (523254)
    Is this the sort of thing anyone in the /. community would use? I don't mean to troll, but aren't there already a million and a half applications that people are already familiar with / already have installed that could do the exact same thing(s)? This isn't the days of Hotline anymore. (Though it did pwn for its time... Ahh, the power of dc++)
  • Link: Glide Effortless [transmediacorp.com]

    Seems like they're planning one gargantuan Flash site to run it all, judging by their current introductory site and the "flashy" screenshots [transmediacorp.com] of their upcoming one.

  • Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jarnis (266190) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:34PM (#13960220)
    'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof'

    Will run on any browser, phone, mobile device, set top box.. and will do everything office, itunes, windows etc does... and magically solves music piracy on the sidelines by magically knowing what's legal and what's not.

    Same old story... Noname company comes out of nowhere, claims their product will cure cancer, end hunger and guarantee world peace all in one go. I call 'bullshit', until presented with real proof of the claims laid out.

  • Jack of all trades... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stonedonkey (416096) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:40PM (#13960246)
    From TFA:

    The software, disclosed in mid-October, is called Glide Effortless. It's a set of 12 applications for content creation, communication, E-commerce, and sharing. The apps are Glide Photos, Glide Music, Glide Video, Glide Docs, Glide AllMedia, Glide Contacts, Glide Calendar, Glide Timeline (Glide's search engine), Glide Mail, Glide Cast (audio, text, and video conferencing), Glide Share, and Glide Shops.

    Sounds like a "jack of all trades, master of none" situation here. Purely speculative, of course, but these individual apps would take quite a long while to polish to the level of their competitors, requiring a huge staff that a start-up just wouldn't have. It would be nice to have an all-in-one, platform-agnostic, Web-accessible solution, but it reminds me too much of those multi-function printers and mobile devices where the sum is less than its parts.

    There's also the Google Mail syndrome, where people don't get on board en masse because they already have a Yahoo/MSN/whatever email address. Not only does the Glide suite have to be compelling, it has to make the user say "I need the whole thing" in the face of him or her already possessing individual programs they're already familiar with and are paying for. If I were TransMedia, I would have released demo versions of their individual apps, rather than cramming everything into one high-profile release. I think that's just asking for trouble.
    • There's a lack of people getting a google mail address?

      I got one because I already had a Yahoo and MSN address. Hotmail deleted my name because I didn't sign in a whopping 30 days and the Yahoo one is swamped by mailing lists/spam - now I know better to prevent that - by keeping on signing services to my Yahoo address:)

      Many others I know got a gmail address just because.

  • Astroglide Effortless (Score:5, Funny)

    by MisterLawyer (770687) <michaellawyer&hotmail,com> on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:42PM (#13960253)
    They ought to throw in a few science and astronomy applications (or maybe just some porn), and rename it to " Astroglide [astroglide.com] Effortless".

    The subliminal association would undoubtedly boost sales.

  • Think of it as iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iCal, Mail, document sharing, shopping, and a few other apps all in one seamless application hosted as a service on the Web that could be accessed by any browser on any computer.
    And it makes your bowel movements smell like fresh cinnamon buns! It does everthing! - Transmedia Marketing Dept.

  • Reminds me of... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by penguin_asylum (822967) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:48PM (#13960277)
    This sounds just like what google is supposed to be trying to do... Free web-based versions of applications, including the supposed office suite, and the mail... But they've beaten google to parts of it; the question is whether this will discourage google from continuing, and if they will be as successful as google has been with this type of venture.

  • Ads for Nerds? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rolfwind (528248) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:48PM (#13960278)
    Promises are cheap. Slashvertising must be cheap too.

    Do these people have any track record? It's a startup? So I guess not.

    Why is this making news before it comes out?

    All I'm reading here are big promises on a product that a cross between .Mac/Google's offerings so- anything new to see here?

    Oh wait....

    From TFA:
    "Not only is TransMedia selling Glide to end users, it's also licensing the software to media companies [b]so they can sell it as a branded service.[/b ] As a result, companies like Comcast, Disney, SBC, and Verizon will have the opportunity to offer an integrated, monetizable service that, at first glance, look significantly more compelling than the offerings from Internet portals like AOL and Internet software services like MySpace.com."

    Gee, what I wanted, along with those Disney and eBay branded credit cards I don't have nor want.... just the corporations I trust with my personal info.

  • Competitor to iTunes? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ForumTroll (900233) on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:49PM (#13960286)
    Simply because you have all these features does not necessarily mean that you're going to be a successful competitor against products like iTunes. iTunes has been marketed so well that it has become almost synonymous with online music shopping. Without support of the major labels and strong advertising companies you simply will not be successful against a product like iTunes in the mainstream market. Furthermore, many people use iTunes as a simple player and therefore when they do feel the need to shop online for music it's just so easy for them to do so through the iTunes interface.

    Also, it seems that they're striving to have a lot of features however many sites that do this do indeed come out with many features however they don't perform any of those features exceptionally well. I guess we'll have to wait and see, but a startup company boasting this many features doesn't exactly give me a lot of confidence in the quality of all these services. This service, from what I can see, is also only available in a subscription based service model which quite frankly the majority of this market is not interested in. Their free plan also only comes with 50MB of space which is not going to persuade people to yet again switch service providers.

    Most of the features they're boasting are also fairly standard and people are not going to switch to a new service unless it offers significant benefits. For example, why would I switch to use this email service when they only give me 50MB of space and other free services give me 50 times that amount? Switching these services is also a pain in the ass for myself and everyone who communicates with me.
  • Sounds like the KDE browser with a couple new ioslaves to me.

  • Glide *Effortless*!? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Laebshade (643478) <laebshade@gmail.com> on Saturday November 05 2005, @07:57PM (#13960321)
    Sounds like a 'personal lubrication' brand...

  • They forgot to use their own product.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by TypoNAM (695420) on Saturday November 05 2005, @08:12PM (#13960379)
    They forgot to use their own product to upload some data because I only get
    "This web document contains no data" out their server. ;)

  • PRWeb has moved (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Infonaut (96956) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Saturday November 05 2005, @08:13PM (#13960385) Homepage Journal
    Its new address is www.slashdot.org.

  • Vaporware of the Year Award (Score:4, Funny)

    by alucinor (849600) on Saturday November 05 2005, @08:17PM (#13960400) Journal
    They almost missed it ... November's here already, less than two months left to enter!
  • How in the hell are they going to provide feature-filled web-based applications to end users and other businesses if their web server can't even stand up to a Slashdotting? I may have to echo the "BS" claims already in place.

  • Online services in general. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by catwh0re (540371) on Saturday November 05 2005, @08:40PM (#13960463)
    Just putting your everyday apps online doesn't make it a killer service. I'd always prefer to run it locally, particularly with broadband speeds not being favourable to say editing HD footage.

    Some things work well being able to be accessed online (Mail and schedules are the best examples I can think of.)

    I feel that alot of the service components are going to go to waste with underuse.

    The era of the laptop doesn't combine well with the all-online paradigm. The most successful approach I have seen with online tools, are ones that download to your device, and sync/update when you get back to an internet connection. Simpler models of this are music download services, and video download services (rather than video streaming services.) Basically so you can carry your content with you, and back it up quickly to devices. Consumers want freedom over their data.

  • chocolate?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by se7en11 (833841) on Saturday November 05 2005, @11:25PM (#13961060) Homepage
    From the article: "Initially, the products available through Glide's E-commerce system will include music, ring tones, chocolate, photo prints, and personalized products. Options are likely to expand as developers avail themselves of the Glide software developer's kit and partners build on the Glide platform.

    I'm in!! Anyone promissing ring tones AND chocolate is a sure winner.

  • Caveman IT Guy Lawyer (Score:3, Funny)

    by Douglas Simmons (628988) on Sunday November 06 2005, @12:46AM (#13961296) Homepage
    I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Your world of p2p programs that allow file sharing without the risk of illegal copying frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: "Did little demons get inside and type it?" I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know - when a man like my client tries to download an innocent Beyonce video and it turns out to be copyrighted bukkake, then he is entitled to no less than two million in compensatory damages, and two million in punitive damages. Thank you.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.