According to Google's blog post about the beta release, the sync feature has to first be activated on each of your computers where Google Chrome is used. To do this, you'll need to download the beta build of the browser available here. Once installed, click the "wrench" menu (yes, the one with the wrench icon) in Google Chrome and select "Synchronize my bookmarks" from the menu that appears. Sign into your Google account in the dialog box that pops up. If you've already set up Sync on another computer, you'll then be prompted to confirm that your different sets of bookmarks should be merged together. In that case, click "Merge and Sync" to complete the process. Finally, click "OK" when you've finished.

Not only does this feature sync your bookmarks, it also creates a copy of your bookmarks file on Google Docs in a new folder called "Google Chrome." (Wonder what else will go in that folder in the future?)

What's in Store for Sync

For now, the Sync feature is only synchronizing browser bookmarks, but the framework behind Sync is ultimately designed to handle the synchronization of other kinds of browser data as well. As to what sort of data that could be, Google can't provide any official confirmation just yet. However, they did say that you could imagine that "this type of infrastructure could be extended to other types of user data such as passwords" in the future. We'll speculate that it will eventually include those passwords, your browser history, and whatever favorite websites appear as thumbnails on the New Tab page. After all, if Mozilla's Weave Sync prototype can handle those sorts of tasks already, there's no reason to believe that Google couldn't do the same.

Because the new Sync feature uses an XMPP connection to synchronize the changes, changes made on one computer are synchronized immediately to another. Not just quickly, mind you, but immediately. This is possible because XMPP is what's known as a "real-time" communication protocol - the same one that powers Google Talk, the company's IM service.

The use of this sort of technology hints at how Google plans to make their Chrome web browser the core of their upcoming netbook operating system, Google Chrome OS. The new OS will run web applications "in the cloud," a radical change from current OS offerings where many applications are still installed on the computer's hard drive itself. With Chrome (the browser's) ability to synchronize data in real-time between computers, it's easy to see how a cloud OS could operate. It wouldn't matter which machine you used, your data would be available, stored in the cloud, synchronized, and all accessible upon login to your Google account. That prospect is either amazing or terrifying depending on your trust level when it comes to Google. Perhaps it's even both. 

Chrome Gets Faster, Too

While Bookmark Sync is the most interesting feature to debut in the new beta, there are some notable speed improvements to mention, too. The latest build improves performance by 30% since the current stable release of Chrome and by 400% since the very first stable release, as measured by Mozilla's Dromeao DOM Core Tests. 

As noted earlier, speed was a major factor in Firefox's 3.6 beta 1, released just this Friday. Both companies are going head-to-head when it comes to browser speed, JavaScript performance and startup times, but no official speed tests have been done yet to compare the two new beta releases.

To download the latest build of Google Chrome beta, head over to the Chrome beta site here. The official beta requires Windows XP SP2 or higher.

Just last week, MySpace also announced that its users can now sync their updates with Microsoft's Live profiles. For now, the new two-way sync feature only works with Twitter, though the company notes that it will soon support other networks as well.

AOL also just announced two-way syncing with Twitter when it launched its AIM Lifestream service last week.  Overall, these services aren't very earth-shattering, but it is good to see that MySpace continues to open up and create more links with other services.

It's also becoming increasingly clear that Twitter is now the de facto clearinghouse for status updates. Pretty much every new service that features status updates already pushes updates to Twitter and now most of the older services are also (slowly) coming on board.

If you haven't yet used Xmarks, you're missing out on one of the better bookmarking services available on the net today. Instead of having you bookmark and share your favorite sites with a network of friends like social bookmarking services Delicious and Diigo do, Xmarks lets you make use of the bookmarks you have saved right in your web browser itself. Once installed on your computer, the Xmarks add-on will keep that bookmark list in sync with any other computers you use, assuming they too have Xmarks installed.

That alone would make Xmarks a useful service, but it doesn't stop there. The company uses the data collected (anonymized of course) to recommend sites to you through integration with Google search. In your search results, Xmarks icons highlight top sites based on how many people have bookmarked them. Hover your mouse over those icons to see quick site info like popularity, rating, and related topics or click though for more details.

Xmarks for Chrome

Unfortunately, early adopters who made the leap to the newest web browser on the block, Google Chrome, have had to go without Xmarks for some time. And it's definitely one of the add-ons which make you question whether going Chrome-only is even really possible. Luckily for this group, the wait may be up: Xmarks has built a version of their extension for Chrome users.

The Chrome extension program is still very much under development - in fact, unless you're running the dev release of Chrome, this feature is out of reach. (See our tutorial on installing Chrome and Chromium side-by-side for another way to play with the latest Chrome features.) But you brave early adopters are now invited to test out the Chrome bookmark sync feature by signing up for the closed alpha program here. As you test the new extension, you can check the Xmarks for Chrome news page for updates on known issues and recent changes. The alpha release doesn't yet support advanced Xmarks features like the discovery features mentioned above, nor does it support sync profiles or running Xmarks on your own server. However, those features will be added in time.

Update! Invites Available!

We spoke with Xmarks and they're willing to give 10 ReadWriteWeb users exclusive access to try the alpha service without having to sign up and wait for approval. To get your invite, be one of the first 10 people to leave a comment on this post. Remember you have to provide your email address (it will not be published).

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/xmarks_comes_to_google_chrome.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/xmarks_comes_to_google_chrome.php Products Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:21:26 -0800 Sarah Perez Within the next two weeks, Google will release a new development version of Google Chrome that will include the ability to sync bookmarks between different computers. As Tim Steele, a software engineer on the Chrome team explained in a message to the Chrome developer group, the synchronization will be managed through a Google account. Changes in one install will be reflected in another Chrome instance in real time thanks to the Chrome team's use of the Google Talk servers as the messaging backend for this service.

With Weave, Mozilla Labs currently offers a very similar feature, though Weave hasn't made it into the default install of Firefox yet. In the past, Google also offered a synchronization plugin for Firefox, but the company discontinued this service in December 2008.

Link to Chrome OS?

Of course, we can't help but wonder if this work isn't also being done in preparation for the upcoming release of the Google Chrome OS. A lot of the work to get Chrome to sync between different instances is being done at the backend. If Google could get its netbook OS to seamlessly sync with applications on the desktop, then that would be yet another selling point for the Chrome OS.

Privacy?

Chances are that you are already storing your search history on Google's servers. With Chrome's synchronization feature, however, you would also store a complete record of all of your comings and going on other parts of the Internet on Google's servers. Mozilla Weave encrypts your data before it is synced with Mozilla's servers. In today's announcement, the Chrome team did not talk about encryption, though we would be surprised if Google didn't implement client-side encryption as well.

For some users, though, giving even more information to Google - even if it is encrypted - may turn out to be a deal breaker.

Get the Dev Channel Release (if you dare)

For now, only users who have installed Chrome's developer version and are subscribed to the Dev channel will see these new features. The Chrome Dev channel is the most frequently updated, cutting-edge version of Chrome, but these version are also far less stable than those in the more mainstream Beta and Stable channels. If you would like to switch to the Dev channel, instructions for installing this version of Chrome can be found here.

In saying that, you may think we're overlooking Office Live Workspace, Microsoft's own web-based service for storing and sharing documents with family, friends, or colleagues. After all, it does come with its own plugin for the Microsoft Office software which allows you to both open and save documents to and from your online workspace.

However, while both Google Docs and Office Live provide online storage and easy ways to share files, Google Docs has Office Live beat when it comes to collaboration, a key reason for the service's popularity. Where Office Live uses SharedView for screen sharing a document with another user in real-time, Google Docs allows multiple users to collaborate in real-time without the need for desktop software. Google's service can even alert you via email notifications when changes have been made. Microsoft's soon-to-arrive "Office Web Applications" may end up giving Google Docs a run for their money (especially considering it will work on the iPhone), but at the moment, Google Docs is the better choice for real-time collaboration.

Why OffiSync?

The only problem with Google Docs is that, in some people's opinion, it's just not as good as Microsoft Office software. Of course, that's an entirely subjective statement - you may or may not agree (In fact, it's likely you don't, given that you're reading a blog about web apps and web technology). Still, there's a large user base of folks who launch Office every day instead of a browser, and it's for those people that OffiSync was designed.

Test Drive

Through a simple Office plugin, you're provided with a new menu seamlessly integrated into either your Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007 software.

From the menu, you can open, save, search, email, and more, as you can see from the image above. In this case, "open" and "save" refers to opening and saving to and from Google Docs, not your PC.

Saving Files

Our one complaint involves the "Save" and "Save As" options. When we opened an Office document that was saved only on our PC, and went to upload it (save it) to Google Docs, neither "Save" nor "Save As" defaulted the title of the doc to what it was already named. Instead, it displayed "untitled." This is obviously only a minor issue, but one that becomes an annoyance if you use OffiSync to upload a lot of previously local-only files to the Google Docs service.

Browsing & Interacting with Google Docs

Using either the Save or Open menu options, you'll be presented with a dialog box which has tabs for both browsing and searching your Google Docs. There's even a drop-down box that lets you switch between multiple Google accounts if necessary.

We were surprised that you could even interact with the Google Docs service from within this dialog box. For example, a right-click on any folder gave us options to create a new folder, delete the folder, or refresh. This was especially handy as we began to upload and organize our local stash of files. You can also drag-and-drop files from one folder to another.

Searching

The search feature also worked really well, searching not only document titles, but also within the documents themselves. However, if you're looking for a document title using partial text, you'll need to use an asterisk (*) in order for the search feature to locate your file.

Collaborating

With the plugin, you can invite collaborators or modify their permissions. In a dialog box, you simply enter their email address, assign read or write permissions, then click "Save." You can then choose to write a short message and configure your notification options. It's just as easy as using the Google Docs service itself.

At the moment, in order to see real-time edits, you still have to use the Google Docs service in the browser. However, OffiSync creator, Oudi Antebi, is working on a feature that will let users see updates in real-time as two or more people open the file in Office.

Conclusion

The OffiSync software is shaping up to become a must-have add-on for anyone who can't part with their Office installation but wants to enjoy the features of Google's cloud-based service. It may even provide some competition for the upcoming Office Web Applications...if OffiSync ever expands beyond Word, Excel and PowerPoint, that is.

Antebi plans to keep OffiSync free for consumers but charge for the enterprise version, which will be available later this year. It's hard to say if that's the right strategy - after all, we're consumers and we'd be willing to pay for this plugin - it's that good. But given Microsoft's plans to debut their own Office web apps later this year, Antebi may have no other choice but to keep it free for consumers in order to stay competitive.

We just hope that OffiSync doesn't end up with the same fate as that other Google Docs/local docs sync service DocSyncer - they didn't make it. But, we think there's a chance that OffiSync will be able to thrive where that service did not thanks to Antebi's plans to integrate even more Google Services (like Google Maps) into the software in the future. That alone, could give it a unique selling point that no one else provides. He also plans on making the search feature more robust, giving users smart filters to find the files based on metadata (names of collaborators, file type, size, location, etc.). That, too, will be a useful feature - especially as more and more of our documents are transitioned to Google's web-based service.

If you want to try OffiSync for yourself, you can. The download is now available for everyone from the OffiSync web site.

However, the most interesting feature of the upcoming bookmarks manager is the new option to import bookmarks from Google Bookmarks. Although at the present time the browser presents this as an option to import from "Google Toolbar," that's somewhat misleading because the Google Toolbar doesn't even need to be installed in order to import your saved bookmarks from the service. Unfortunately, the new bookmark manager in Chromium doesn't sync up with the Google Bookmarks service automatically.

Google Bookmarks' Potential

It seems to us that Google is sitting on a untapped goldmine with their Google Bookmarks service. This half-hearted attempt at organizing your favorites sites looks like a project that was stopped mid-way through its implementation. In order to save bookmarks using the service today, you can star items from the Google Toolbar (if installed), you can use a browser bookmarklet, you can manually add a link from the bookmarks homepage or through the iGoogle Gadget, or you can click the star next to items in your Web History. What you can't do, however, is import bookmarks from an HTML file or browser, tag them, or share them with others.

But now that Google has a browser of their own, it only makes sense to tie together browser bookmarks and their bookmarking service. And surely they must realize that in order to get people to use Google Bookmarks instead of their current preferred service, Google must offer some compelling reasons to do so. By integrating Google Bookmarks deep within their browser itself and making them searchable through the familiar Google interface, they could offer a great reason to switch over to both their bookmarking service and their browser. If Google went the extra step and made their bookmarks sync between all the implementations of the Chrome browser, including the one they are preparing for Android, they could knock out competition from Opera, too, whose bookmark sync option is one of the browser's killer features for mobile users.

Even better would be an option to sign in to the Chrome browser using a Google profile in order to access the bookmarks along with other the services from Google like Gmail, Reader, or their personalized homepage.

Perhaps we're getting ahead of ourselves since nothing of the sort has been announced or implemented yet, but we hope that we're not the only ones thinking of all the possibilities that Chrome presents here.

Images courtesy of Google Operating System

The new tool providing this functionality is the latest version of the Outlook Connector public beta. This downloadable software works to sync Outlook's calendar with Windows Live Hotmail's Calendar with the Windows Live Calendar Beta. Such an integrated offering is a surprise considering that Microsoft is a company that's sometimes known for launching what are perceived as too-similar, parallel solutions (think FolderShare, SyncToy, SkyDrive, Mesh).

The previous version of this connector allowed you to sync email and contacts data between Outlook and Hotmail for free, but calendar sync required a subscription service. With this new version, however, calendar sync is now free and it includes the ability to work with Live Calendar beta. And because Live Calendar also supports calendar sharing, those shared calendars will sync back to Outlook, too.

For someone who uses an Outlook calendar at work, keeps a personal calendar in Hotmail, and perhaps has a shared family calendar in Live Calendar, this new sync tool will be incredibly useful. Whether you're online or offline, all your calendars are available from one place: Outlook.

The release of this connector is a great example of Microsoft's firm commitment to their S+S (Software + Services) architecture. They intend for software to be the hub for your activities with web services available as an additional layer. S+S combines the power of the internet with the richness that is still, as of today, found mostly in desktop software (although web software is quickly closing that gap). This is an entirely different mindset than what Google and other web companies are offering - in fact, it's just the opposite. Google Calendar, for example, will be implementing Google Gears which is software that makes a web app available offline and then syncs your changes when you connect to the internet again. The battle between these two similar, but opposing, methodologies will play out over the coming months. The ReadWriteWeb audience of early adopters and web developers tends to think the winner will be web apps in the end, but the truth of the matter is that it's still too early in the game for either side to declare victory just yet.

Of course, the missing piece to the Microsoft solution is the fact that Outlook (or any) desktop software isn't necessarily available on every PC that you own. However, considering their new Live Mesh platform isn't designed to just handle file sync, but is designed to handle application sync too, it's easy to see what direction they're headed. Microsoft is still betting on software - they're just using the web as a tool which makes everything work together more seamlessly than it did before .

Do you think S+S is a viable solution for computing's future? Or do you think today's web apps should be focused on implementing offline sync? Or can these two opposing agendas co-exist? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Some of Google's competitors such as Zimbra or Zoho are already offering some of these capabilities based on Google Gears. MySpace, too, is working on making its messaging platform available offline using Gears.

As Alex Chitu from the Google Operating System blog observes, Google's support for SyncML is also noteworthy. SyncML is an open standard for synchronizing information between different devices and, so far, has mostly been adopted by the mobile phone industry, with all the major companies such as Motorola, Nokia, Sony, LG, as well as IBM and Siemens supporting it in at least some of their products.

The latest version of SyncML has added support for push email. According to Andrew Fogg, Google is using SyncML for synchronizing its contacts database with the iPhone, but in the long run, it is probably worth speculating if Google might also start pushing email to the iPhone (or any other phone for that matter), using the SyncML push technology.

He then points us to a resource that can help. Using LCDS, Christophe Coenraets has just published a sample application called InSync (zip file) that shows developers how to build an AIR app that offers automatic offline data synchronization. What this means is that the whole data sync process is entirely automatic - developers don't have to write SQL statements or sync logic to keep a local database in sync with the central one.

InSync Sample App

You might be thinking that this news really doesn't impact you because you're not a developer, but what you're going to see is the impact of this as more developers begin to use LCDS. Take, for example, the nifty little AIR app called ReadAIR (that just added keyboard shortcuts - yes!). This app lets you read Google Reader via a desktop app. On the project homepage's "to-do" list, one upcoming item is "offline sync." By using LCDS, the process of enabling such a thing could be much easier. And if it's easier to develop, you'll get that offline sync added to your favorite AIR app much faster. You'll also see more apps providing this in the future. As developer John C. Bland wrote on his blog:

"I'm a skeptic at times when I see a little bit of code doing a lot but DANG! This time I was proved wrong."

Essentially, Live Mesh is a collection of feeds (which can be expressed as ATOM, JSON, FeedSync, RSS, WB-XML, or POX). Every piece of data entered into a user's Mesh -- be it a file, a folder, a message, a user permission, or a new device -- is rendered as a piece of information in a feed. The feeds are then synced with other devices that are part of that Mesh following rules for how to sync each particular piece of information (i.e., File A may sync with Users 1, 2, and 3, while File B may only be told to sync with Users 1 and 2).

Mesh is a combination of web based services that sync files and information across a cloud environment, and client software that allows individual devices to sync with the Mesh. This is a continuation of Microsoft's "software plus services" strategy, in which client software is augmented by (or reliant upon) web services.

The News Feed

While Mesh doesn't have any version control capabilities yet -- a must for a service that syncs data between multiple users -- it does borrow a popular feature from the web for keeping users up-to-date on what's going on across a system: the news feed. The Live Mesh Notifier is a news feed of all the activity on a user's Mesh. Right now that means changes made to files, folders, devices, user permissions, and comments left on files/folders.

However, because Live Mesh is a platform that seeks to interact with third party services (more on that below), it is easy to envision how much more could be pushed through the news feed. We were shown a demo application that synced tweets on Twitter with the Mesh Notifier, for example. As more services use the Live Mesh platform, could it, or a service built on top of it, eat FriendFeed's lunch?

The Platform

What makes Live Mesh potentially very special is that Microsoft has turned synchronization into a platform. Eventually, services as well as devices will be able to hook into Mesh. We were shown some early demos of the type of things Microsoft envisions for the Mesh service that were quite impressive. In one proof-of-concept demo, a photo that was taken via a cell phone camera, was automatically synced to a Mesh that pushed the pictures out to a Facebook photo album.

It was certainly impressive to see data -- in this case a cell phone camera picture -- almost instantly synced across multiple devices and saved to a web service immediately after it was created. Microsoft envisions Mesh as a platform for data synchronization for any service we use and for any type of data. Ideally, for example, if someone were to comment on that photo at Facebook, the comment would sync to anywhere else that photo was hosted (your desktop computer, the desktop computers of anyone sharing the photo, your laptop, other photo sharing sites, etc.).

Taking On Google Gears?

Perhaps the most interesting bit that Microsoft demoed to us was an offline compontent of the Mesh platform. Web apps using the Mesh platform will be able to lean on the client software to take their web applications offline, including all user data, and sync it up when the user gets back online at a later time.

Microsoft is taking an offline approach that is more akin to Google Gears or Mozilla Prism than Adobe AIR -- the web-to-desktop functionality of Mesh is essentially a wrapper for the actual web app. The same HTML and JavaScript, etc. runs in a desktop window in offline mode, data is stored locally, and synced later. The difference is that Microsoft is ting offline access into the Mesh service, so developers don't just get the technology to take their apps offline, but also access to the synchronization and cloud storage services to move their data back and forth.

We've talked about the importance of web apps on the desktop on this blog, so this could be an important component of Mesh.

Will It Work?

It is still very early for Mesh. Microsoft intends to invite key development partners to try out the system in the next few weeks, and will roll out support for other devices (including mobile and Mac) over the next year. One thing that could hinder Mesh, though, is Microsoft's rather confused marketing around its online services. Between Mesh, SkyDrive, Live Spaces, and FolderShare there is so much overlap in Microsoft's services that users are bound to get confused.

Ideally, Mesh will be a platform that will tie all of Microsoft's online storage, synchronization, and sharing services together -- along with other, third party services. But the confusing muddle that is Microsoft Live could stymie mainstream adoption. Microsoft needs to clean up their act and present a more clear marketing message.

Software + services is also a potentially tougher sell than software as a service -- people don't like downloading things. Still, Microsoft has created a compelling product that they hope will standardize synchronization across the universe of devices and web services we each use every day. The prospect of getting easy access to user data on multiple devices could be attractive for developers and prompt them to embrace the platform, but it is probably too early to make any specific predictions.

Ray Ozzie Memo

Accompanying the launch of Live Mesh is a new memo from Microsoft Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie. It notes that Microsoft sees the Web as "the Hub of our social mesh and our device mesh." Ozzie calls this "social mesh" and writes that "in scenarios ranging from productivity to media and entertainment, social mesh notions of linking, sharing, ranking and tagging will become as familiar as File, Edit and View."

UPDATE: here is the full text of Ray Ozzie's memo

ReadWriteWeb was given exclusive early access to the beta of SugarSync. As well as the first look, we have 1,500 beta invites for our readers (details at the end of this post).

SugarSync was built on a platform called Sharpcast Universal Synchronization Platform, which Sharpcast plans to make available to mobile phone operators and others. Sharpcast claims that SugarSync is "the only comprehensive synchronization service that offers real-time sync and backup of your data across all of your computers, the web and your phone." The SugarSync beta is, we're told, only a subset of what the platform will eventually do.

Sharpcast first made its name in 2006-07 as a sync manager for photos. That was always meant to be a proof of concept of the more extensive file sync functionality. With SugarSync, you download a desktop app to your computer(s), but you can also access it online at sugarsync.com and on your mobile at m.sugarsync.com.

Mobile access in general has been beefed up, with special mobile applications for different media types. In the beta, there is a downloadable gallery application for photos, enabling you to (for example) view and share your Picasa photos from your phone, or wirelessly sync camera phone photos back to your Vista gallery. Currently there are mobile apps available at m.sugarsync.com for Blackberry and Windows Smartphones; with J2ME, Symbian and Brew clients in development. Mobile apps for music and video syncing/streaming are coming soon too.

The private beta SugarSync is Windows-only at this point, but the Mac version is coming soon and will certainly be there on public launch. Linux will also eventually be supported.

How SugarSync Works

The real beauty of SugarSync is that it's real-time - so when you update something on the cloud, it is automatically synced to your computer (and vice versa). The way this works is that SugarSync monitors files on your computer and keeps a synchronized copy of them on their secure central server. For the Web and mobile access, you basically receive a personal website where you can access your data - the company says that this is securely backed up in two carrier grade data centers.

Users get 1 GB of data free and there will be premium options available for more data. However note that during the beta period, you can get up to 11 GB of storage for free.

Sharpcast CTO Ben Strong, the architect of the Sharpcast Universal Sync platform which SugarSync is built on, told ReadWriteWeb that SugarSync aims to be "a system that combines the best attributes of the online vault and remote access solutions." By online vault, he means online storage solutions such as Windows Live Drive; and by remote access solutions he means products like GoToMyPC and Soonr.

Strong told us:

"We want access through any web browser and automatic backup plus great integration with our desktop applications and access to the most recent version of the files on our computers. And the pieces must be fully integrated, so that changes made in the vault are fully reflected on all our computers and devices. And to top it off, we need to be able to easily publish media from our vault to social networks and content sites like Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube."

It's taken about 4 years for Sharpcast to come up with this sync platform and the product now known as SugarSync. Also, as noted above, some of the features mentioned (such as social network syncing) are not yet available in the beta. So some of this theory won't be seen in the wild for months, but it is a big problem that Sharpcast is tackling.

As of now, Strong said that SugarSync supports "a broad array of consumer data types, including both files (e.g., documents and media), and database-resident objects (e.g., contacts, calendars, and playlists), with the ability to easily add new data types without modifying the core sync engine."

Platform Access to Third Party Developers

A question always asked in this day and age is: will third party developers have access to the platform? For SugarSync, the answer is yes according to Sharpcast Ben Strong:

"We have a set of APIs that allow developers to either access and modify data that has been created by other applications and services, or to create and sync their own custom file and object types. They work with a simple set of data access primitives, while we take care of hard parts of sync: conflict resolution, scalable and secure server-side storage, efficient change notification, access control, account management, billing, and all the features mentioned above. This dramatically reduces the level of effort required to build a new application that works seamlessly across multiple devices. Furthermore, we are committed to working with interested parties to standardize next-generation sync protocols and APIs."

A possible example of how the platform could be utilized by third party developers is Outlook talking to iCal, something which many people would like. So a third party developer could create a solution that syncs those two products together.

The APIs will probably be released later in 2008, but there is no firm date at this time.

Target Market

Sharpcast's target market for SugarSync is "prosumers" - a mix of home, SMB and enterprise users. In our interview, CEO Gibu Thomas told me that down the line they will tackle enterprise more - e.g. one option will be for enterprises to host the central and web servers in-house.

Our Take

It's obvious that Sharpcast is aiming to become the leading platform for sync services, becoming a connecting cog in the world of data on desktops, mobile and Web. In a way, Sharpcast reminds me of Feedburner, in that it wants to become the leading platform for a new type of media service that only came into being in the Internet age. In Feedburner's case it was syndication (specifically RSS), which turned out to be a key part of today's Web - and led to Google acquiring Feedburner last year. In Sharpcast's case, sync services are also primed to become a key part of the Internet ecosystem. I'm not aware of any other comprehensive sync platform, just as when Feedburner started there were no other comprehensive RSS platforms.

The big Internet companies - particularly Microsoft, Google and Adobe - are all working on sync services of their own. But, if the technology lives up to its promise, Sharpcast is poised to become the leader in this space. So I wouldn't be surprised if Sharpcast becomes an acquisition target (if it isn't already) for those bigcos.

It must be said that it's taken a long time for Sharpcast to fulfil the promise that we saw in it in 2006. And it's still only private beta mode, so too early to tell for sure if this will be successful. The messaging could also be improved a little (the distinction between the platform and SugarSync isn't entirely clear right now). But still, the Feedburner analogy is looking pretty strong to me - I expect Sharpcast to become a familiar name to Web users before the year is out.

ReadWriteWeb Exclusive Private Beta Invites to SugarSync

We have 1,500 beta invites to the SugarSync to give away to RWW readers. Click here and enter the code: RWW (it will be auto-populated with the code). When you check out the service, be sure to come back to ReadWriteWeb and leave a comment about your experiences.