Joyent has two services I think are pretty neat: Bingo! and Strongspace. At first, it didn't seem all that apparent what each of their strengths were, as they're both similar, disk-space services. Pretty much, they're both just data stored on a disk, accessible to anybody with internet access. Well, not quite. In fact, as I went through their marketing materials, I figured out these were two, similar, but separately-focused products. It didn't help that they make it rather obvious by how they use it at Joyuer. Bingo! is what they use to serve up their podcast (I'm not sure what they use to serve their evil bananas). Bingo! is a way to serve up files without burning through your monthly bandwidth. In fact, you're going to start to see a lot of companies pitching you for space. What they're selling is tons of bandwidth, so you can send out movies or podcasts or songs or pictures or zipped Keynote files (since they mess up when you don't zip them - thanks Apple). Tons of big files, going out at rapid speed? That's what Bingo! is made for. And that is not what Strongspace is made for. Something else about Bingo!, other than just not telling people where the file is, or encrypting it somehow, there's no way to keep people from getting to your files in your public access. This isn't a bug, it's a feature, where anybody can grab your stuff. It's a little different with Strongspace, as that service is all about security. Wanna host a podcast with Strongspace? Don't expect it to work in iTunes - not without a password, anyways. It's because Strongspace is that personal space where you store files you don't want the world to see. In fact, it might be the files you don't want your cohorts to see. Backing up all the files on your laptop isn't something I'd expect somebody to do on a public folder. While you can save to a your Bingo! disk using WebDAV, just like it was another folder, Strongspace isn't tolerant at all. SFTP for the account holder, and the browser application for everybody else - and they'll like it that way. It's not just because of the differences in the formats, Bingo! is just a newer system, and Strongspace doesn't need openness you'd get with a more lenient application.

Aside on Strongspace

I'd like to see Strongspace worked on a bit more, and chatted up a bit more. And a bit more space on it, as well. But my eagerness for improvements (and my use of the phrase "a bit more") bely the realization that it's just a tough sell trying to get people to buy secure storage. For whatever reason, people think the space you get in an AIM account is the same as that in Strongspace. Or they're willing to try some other freebie Web 2.0â„¢ site in exchange for who-knows-who has their paws on their data. They're doing a bang-up job promoting Bingo! I'd like to see that kind of effort going into Strongspace, as well.

status: published
lastmod: '2006-12-07T20:00:16.000Z'
author: John Stansbury
cms: wordpress
custom:
  podPressPostSpecific: 'a:6:{s:15:"itunes:subtitle";s:15:"##PostExcerpt##";s:14:"itunes:summary";s:15:"##PostExcerpt##";s:15:"itunes:keywords";s:17:"##WordPressCats##";s:13:"itunes:author";s:10:"##Global##";s:15:"itunes:explicit";s:7:"Default";s:12:"itunes:block";s:7:"Default";}'
  similarterms: bingo strongspace files fact serve access services pretty space podcast tons folder disk system made similar bandwidth public expect people
  _utw_tags_0: 'a:6:{i:0;O:8:"stdClass":1:{s:3:"tag";s:6:"bingo!";}i:1;O:8:"stdClass":1:{s:3:"tag";s:8:"business";}i:2;O:8:"stdClass":1:{s:3:"tag";s:6:"joyent";}i:3;O:8:"stdClass":1:{s:3:"tag";s:6:"review";}i:4;O:8:"stdClass":1:{s:3:"tag";s:11:"strongspace";}i:5;O:8:"stdClass":1:{s:3:"tag";s:6:"webapp";}}'