Transporter: A social backup and sharing solution — GigaOM Pro ⇢

from my post at GigaOM:

Someone alerted me to Transporter, which is a just-about-to-end Kickstarter project, one that has raised $200,000 plus dollars. Transporter is a very different take on backup and sharing. As they say on the Kickstarter page,

Transporter is an online, but off-cloud storage solution for privately sharing, accessing and protecting all of your valuable files.

The premise is this: each user has a transporter — either with a built-in or attached hard drive — and these transporters can communicate. I could create a backup of my family photos on my sister’s transporter, and give her read access to the files. If my local hard drive crapped out I could simple buy a new one, and the family photos would reappear, copied back from my sister’s copy.

Note that in this scenario there is no necessity for the folks at transporter to act as a server-based intermediary, aside from verifying identities initially. And they certainly won’t be providing a back-up service.

Lastly, I could backup a copy of my personal tax records on my brother’s transporter, but in a private way. Yes, he’d have to agree to allow me to place that backup there, but I would do the same for him, and we both come out ahead.

The business model is again a sort of anti-Dropbox: no monthly fees, just the purchase price of the Transporter device, which was going for $149 at the Kickstarter, now sold out. It seems that you can still get it for $179 though, with no drive.

Go read the whole piece.

9 January 2013 4 underpaidgenius
transporterdropboxonline but off-cloudpeer-to-peer backupsocial backupp2p backup

Notes

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    from my post at GigaOM: Go read the whole piece.
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