by Aner Ravon
Filed under: web 2.0, Convergence, fusion, Aner Bio, boat on wheels, mobile
The Vision I share with the folks at SharpCast got me blogging in the first place. Delivering fusion – web services and convergence – in a user centric way is where my heart is. Too bad SharpCast doesn’t really deliver on it’s own promise. At least not yet.
I’ve been following SharpCast for a while. They have managed to put together attractive investments - over $16.5 Million - before launching their first alpha application. Very impressive. I was also impressed with Gibu Thomas, their CEO, and his interesting and refreshing view on data synching and common languages. Share and access your data from anywhere at any time –without resorting to “file exchanges” – couldn’t agree with that more.
I was obviously intrigued when I read about their app going public this morning at TechCrunch. I immediately went to their site and downloaded the application. SharpCast chose to go “the client way” – a downloadable Windows client instead of a web based approach. A debatable approach? Maybe. Do we expect much out of 12 Megabytes of downloaded software? Absolutely.
The application itself is very mature technically, definitely for a first run, but not very intuitive. While the interface is simple, clean and even slick, it takes time to found your way to creating a new album and to sharing it. It currently offers two use cases – sharing of photos and of contacts. The contacts sharing option is not really ready yet (no contact collection and filtering, for example, which makes it kind of useless). The photo sharing feature looks like the intended killer penetration use case. It does look nice – classier then Picasa and much better then MSN, but still a bit too much of a “me too”. I opened my first album, imported a few photos and looked to access with my mobile. And here I found the real problem.
I searched and searched and could not find a hint on how to “share with my mobile”. anywhere! After 15 minutes I gave up and backtracked to the online help (I’m a man, I have to try the hell out first). Then it struck me! I must have a mobile client! And SharpCast offers one for – get this – Palm and Windows Mobile only!
Wait a minute! You just created all that noise, raised all that money, got me to download and install 12 Megabytes of software on my aging and moaning laptop…and you leave me hanging with a useless application? As a matter of fact, you offer a mobile solution for the fraction of mobile users that for some reason purchased a Palm or Window Mobile phone? How Not user centric is that?? This ain’t convergence!
So here goes guys – I own a RAZR! None of my friends or family member, or anyone I would like to share photos with, owns a Windows Mobile or a Palm! Check out SoonR – they offer WAP based sharing which WORKs on my phone. Maybe it doesn’t take $16M to build it, maybe it’s not that classy looking, maybe it has shortcomings, but it WORKS. I understand the approach behind a higher end application, but come on! Build a Java client or grant WAP access. Just give me something I can actually USE!
To me that’s a killer right there. I do have other reservations, though. Photo sharing and contact synching are too exhausted and saturated use cases. I wont even start counting the companies I know that offer similar services. It really takes a fresh approach to make it worth it. The client is too heavy and is available only for windows right now. I couldn’t tell if SharpCast is ready to deal with data transcoding – from media files to work documents – a key barrier before going mass market. Right now SharpCast is a niche service for traveling professionals and their applicative message is a bit overused. I’m not sure this is what they have in mind, but that’s where they are right now.
Now I have a lot of respect to the SharpCast fellas. This is also why I expect more. They clearly know how to build a company and how to develop a product, which is why I’ll come back for the next version. At my next visit I hope I’ll see they will have gotten the user centric and marketing angles right too.
Aner Ravon
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Aner,
I posted this comment on techcrunch, but posting here in case you don’t see it.
Absolutely we are working on more mainstream mobile platforms. Please give us a bit of time to crawl before we can really walk 
So far, most of the work (3+ years) has gone into the underlying real-time sync platform, which is the important thing for the future. Win Mobile was the quickest way for us to get an end-to-end experience to market, which is why we picked it. That said, there are a lot more of you out there than Win Mobile users or smart phone users, so we absolutely are focused on a more powerful mobile story.
The lack of a mainstream mobile story notwithstanding, and this might not be as interesting to you, but the current solution is primarily intended to prove the power of desktop/web staying in sync. By the way, the album/image import will dramatically improve as well. For now, the easiest thing to do is drag and drop a folder of images into the album pane on the left (even if you are offline). They are automatically synced to the web. You can go to a browser then and make changes and they are automatically synced back to the desktop for those times when you are offline.
Also the contacts in the photo app is only intended as a buddy list for you to share your albums with, not a full fledged contact management solution. Today at the D conference, we will show you our vision of managing your PIM (think a Blackberry-experience for the rest of us on your current devices, with your current PIM apps).
Anyway, you raise fair and interesting points in your review, all of which are stuff we are working on. The hardest part is to get the mainstream to understand the power of sync. We are doing it as fast as we can and we will get where you want us to be sooner rather than later, I promise.
Please keep feedback, positive and negative, coming. It will help us get better.
Gibu
05.31.06 @ 1:25 pmAner,
I appreciate the attention you;ve given our application and the thought you put into this post. I can assure you we are indeded working on sync for mainstream mobile phones - we chose Windows Mobile to start with a focused set of products to make sure we get it right as we go. This early release is intended to introduce people to transparent syncing and sharing between the desktop and web without the common hassles of uploading, as well as having all their photos automatically backed up and accessible from any PC. I hope you will continue to try it out, we are listening to your feedback.
Gibu and Allen
Many thanks for taking the time to read my post. I also posted this comment at Techcrunch.
I truly understand the value and the hard work you have to put into the infrastructure alone and I definitely see the vision and potential. My personal and professional background has (unfortunately) made me very familiar with how complicated synching is, especially when mobile is involved.
My criticism, if I can call it such, is with the unclear message / use case of your first public app. If it’s about Pc to Web synching that’s one thing. If it’s PC to mobile synching, then that’s another thing. I dig the overall picture, I really do, but as a user I can listen to one message at a time. If what I heard was cross device then I expect cross device and hence my disappointment.
On a personal note, I wish you all the luck. I read your personal blog and you seem like a person whose values I totally identify with. I will definitely keep following.
05.31.06 @ 1:46 pmAner, I posted this on Techcrunch, but posting here again in case you don’t see it.
–
I think your comments are valid. The frank answer why there is a disconnect between the mobile-inclusive positioning and the reality of not having mobile for a few more weeks is because we are behind where we thought we would be. It seemed prudent for us to try and fix the mobile ASAP than iterate again on the message or have multiple competing messages.
The mobile is an important part of our story and it is an area that we are focusing heavily on. But, it is a more complicated game as you know with the device/network limitations, fragmented operating systems and the role of the carrier. The good news is that our background building the Palm Blazer browser and working with carriers helps tremendously in overcoming these challenges. But, for another couple of months, our mobile story will center around Win Mobile 5.0.
Thanks for your good wishes. It is kind sentiments like the one you express that keep us going, so I really appreciate it.
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“We’re still ironing out the mobile application, which we’ll deliver for you soon.”
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