rrripple blog - private, meaningful sharing

I can admit it now…I was a bit skeptical of the utility of our Activity Stream.  I have such disdain for the Newsfeed way of life, getting glued to a non-stop output of random information and thoughts from random “friends” on Facebook.  I twitch just thinking about the time I’ve wasted.

Once our Activity Stream was live on our iPhone and iPad’s (and now live on web app!) I realized how totally helpful the AS is.  It’s great, do to the fact that the groups that are being summarized by the Activity Stream are all comprised of people I care about, that I created and belong to, that I want to know what is being shared within the groups, real time.

A teacher told me the same thing. She said: “I can assign homework to class, and as I’m running errands in the afternoon, I can find when all of my pupils have submitted their homework, and then I can sit down and review them all at once.”

So the Activity Stream summarizes (top-to-bottom flow) all of the relevant information, and all of the relevant activities of all of my relevant groups.  Especially while I’m on the run, I can check today’s activities, I’m always current.  Therefore, I get 100% of my relevant Signal (conent) and 0% noise.

Finally, mobile sharing that works for me, Yeah!

The countdown is over, the late nights of programming and design work have paid off, and our team is proud to announce the rrripple iPad application – ready for download from iTunes.

Our media curation service has been an ideal tool for chronicling and sharing media since our launch at TechCrunch50 last September, and our service was built by forward-thinking developers who had a touchscreen user interface in mind, anticipating products like the iPad. And now, we get to put our theories to the test, and look forward to your feedback.

rrripple’s timeline-based dashboard allows members to quickly and easily scroll through their media chronologically, and our sliding Friends and Groups tab give a sleek and simple dashboard for sharing media with controlled access levels.

Whether you’re going to be using your new iPad to log on and view photos or video from friends and family, or if you’ll be using it to give client presentations, our service ensures that you have access to all of your most important files in the cloud, ready to be viewed with just the touch of your fingertips.

We strive to provide our members with the best possible service, and look forward to hearing your feedback and stories about your experience with the rrripple iPad application!

For those of us in Silicon Valley, the race is on to get approval from Apple for its highly-anticipated iPad, which is set to hit the stores on April 3. For those of you lucky enough to have gotten your hands on one of these pre-sale touch screen tablets, you’ll have a number of exciting new apps hitting the press in the coming weeks, each specially designed for the iPad’s unique interface.

We at rrripple have been waiting. As we mentioned in a previous post, our entire user experience was designed to be touch screen ready – so that when devices like the iPad hit stores, we’d be able to provide our members with the best experience.

And while our Web application (and our iPhone app – if you haven’t already, you can download it here!) is designed with a touchscreen interface in mind, our development team has been toiling away to get the official iPad application ready for the big launch. And we’re excited to say, the app is ready, and we’ve submitted it for Apple’s stamp of approval.

We’ll have more updates for you as soon as we get our official approval – but in the meantime, here is a sneak peek of what our app will look like:

The feature set we have on rrripple fills a real need that not a lot of other services do: allowing you to share things truly on your own terms. While many other services only let you restrict your posts to all of your contacts, we know that not everyone you know needs to see every post you make. That’s why rrripple lets you choose, for each post, precisely with whom you’d like to share. Think of it as “sorta sharing.”

We’ve already blogged about rrripple’s commitment to private group sharing, but in case you were wondering just how easy it is to share something with a private group, a trusted bunch of friends… or both, it’s as easy as checking (or not checking) a box:

After clicking “post” at the top of any page, watch as lists of your contacts and groups slide smoothly into your view, on either side of the page. While your content uploads, use the panels to select precisely which groups should receive the content, and which of your contacts should as well. Anyone with a blue box next to their name will have access to the content, and anyone without will not.

Having a lot of rrripple contacts or groups doesn’t mean repetitive mouse strain injuries, either! Use rrripple’s “select all” or “select none” features, followed by just a few more clicks, to share a post with almost everyone… or almost no one.

You may have noticed, from the slick animations and consistent overall experience, that we’ve designed rrripple’s interface entirely in Flash. One of the best things about Flash is its use of vector graphics. As opposed to raster graphics, which are made of pixels (and, thus, get “pixelated” when stretched), vector graphics are made of lines and curves, which makes them infinitely resizable!

What this means to you, dear rrrippler, is that no matter how you stretch or scrunch your web browser’s window, rrripple is able to adapt, to bring you the best possible viewing experience. Whether you’re using rrripple on a desktop computer with a standard 4:3 monitor, laptop with a wide-screen, or have your computer connected to a large-screen HDTV, you’ll never get a rrripple interface that doesn’t perfectly fit your screen.

(Neat tip: In most web browsers, you can press the F11 key to make the browser interface — the toolbars, scrollbars, menus, etc. — disappear and experience as big a rrripple as possible, with no distractions! If F11 doesn’t work in your browser, see your browser’s menu options for the appropriate key.)

Our team at rrripple is always keen to interact with anyone who can provide us with valuable feedback and suggestions to make our product even better. In a similar quest (and to pay homage to our alma mater, since both co-founders at rrripple are UC Berkeley grads), Andres and Mandeep set out to the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) on a beautiful Friday morning. First up, while navigating through bouts of nostalgia and pride, Andres gave a ‘crash’ walking tour of UC Berkeley campus to Mandeep. The VCIC event was even more fun. It was very encouraging to witness the sheer enthusiasm of Haas Business School students on hearing about rrripple. Many of them had been beta users, and had been in correspondence with us reporting bugs and providing suggestions - it was great putting faces to those friendly emails. They asked very smart and insightful questions, and made some worthwhile suggestions. It was great engaging with the other entrepreneurs too, who made equally impactful presentations about their ventures.

Rounding off the event with a nice lunch, on the way back Andres stopped to savor the ever-famous Blue Bottle coffee, finally reminiscing over his amazing hinter years.

Wedding planning can be a major challenge – something I can attest to personally. Modern brides are juggling their careers, social lives, wedding planning duties and domestic responsibilities – often with family and friends spread far around the country or around the globe.

Sharing ideas, photos, videos, and articles with the Mother of the Bride, the Maid of Honor, bridesmaids, and – of course – wedding coordinators, is a must for most ladies, but finding a platform to manage the media and files that go into coordinating the Big Day is difficult. Wedding sites, like TheKnot.com or MyWedding.com offer public sites that allow brides to share stories, details, photo galleries and reservation information with the wedding guests – but aren’t an ideal way to share photos of her top dress choices with a small group of people. Likewise, social networking services offer the same disadvantage – what bride wants all of her wedding guests to see her dress before she walks down the aisle?

Enter rrripple. From sharing with her closest confidantes to posting wedding details – time, date, location, room blocks and important party information with all of her guests – rrripple allows brides (and grooms) to be the power of a multimedia sharing tool in a controlled setting.

Want to share images of potential cakes and floral arrangements, documents with proposed menus and appetizers, or even discuss secret surprises with your wedding coordinator? rrripple lets you do that. Want to share details for bridesmaids’ dresses, shoes and accessories with just your ladies? Set up a bridal party group and sharing is as easy as dragging and dropping photos and files into your designated group. Best of all – your Maid of Honor can create her own group (using rrripple) to plan your surprise bridal shower and bachelorette party with your mother and bridesmaids – and you won’t spoil the surprise.

And for wedding guests – the benefits are just as useful. By building a wedding group on rrripple, the bride and groom are making “virtual introductions” in advance of their special day, and making it easy for their guests to:

• Coordinate airport transportation with other out of town guests arriving at the same time
• Share their stories about the bride and groom, or post photos they have of the couple
• Post their own wedding photos after the event in a private setting where all guests (who may not know each other or be connected on social networking platforms) can enjoy or comment on them, without having them open to the public
• Keep in touch after the event, or post contact information such as phone number or email addresses with requests from the group (e.g., “Did anyone happen to pick up a white iPhone from Table 5? If found, please email [email protected]”)

Perhaps you’ve already started your Knot wedding page, or have created your own, customized Web site to share details with guests. But for planning important details, private communications and media sharing, check out rrripple!

Behind the Scenes

You may have noticed, rrripple has been hard at work making some important, member-facing changes – we’re eliminating bugs, making the site slicker and faster, and adding features that make ours the best private sharing experience on the Web.

But we’re also busy making some behind the scenes changes, as well. Perhaps the best way to ensure that you’re running the best service on the Web is to make sure that you have the best people backing it – and that’s why rrripple’s executive team has been hard at work finding the “best in the business” to join our diverse team of talented individuals, each of whom bring a new element to the rrripple experience.

This week, we’re proud to announce two such additions – who will be enhancing our technical and business development teams! Please join us in giving them a warm welcome!

Judah Frangipane, Senior Flex Developer

Judah Frangipane, a senior Flex developer, will be providing our dev team with strategic guidance and hands-on development for our applcation. Judah brings to the team more than seven years’ experience in Flex and Flash development. You can learn more about Judah and read his personal blog at http://judahfrangipane.com.

Please join our team in giving Judah a warm welcome to the rrripple community!

There’s one word resonating across the blogosphere today: iPad. What was described by TechCrunch as a “big iPhone” may undoubtedly do for laptops what the iPhone did for, well, phones. And, as with the iPhone 3G, with the product launch came a flurry of apps, optimized iPhone versions, games and gadgets.

Luckily, at rrripple, we don’t have to “jump on the bandwagon.” Our service has been designed around a touchscreen UI experience from our inception, and we’re thrilled to be able to stake our claim as the first Tablet-Ready, or, now, iPad-Ready media sharing application on the Web. Our private media and file sharing service that helps members capture their “lifeflows” will work spectacularly on the iPad, giving users a simple, intuitive touchscreen experience.

rrripple’s already simple timeline feature will be ideal for scanning through your digital lifeflow, chronologically searching through all of the media that you encounter and share on a day to day basis: your photos, videos, links and documents.

We knew this day was coming, and we can’t wait to be a part of the revolution. Welcome, iPad, from rrripple. We’ve been waiting for you.

rrripple has been making waves in the press for our innovative, private content sharing service – and now we have a chance to make an even bigger splash as a contestant in the Vator Splash competition, hosted by Vator.tv.

If selected as a top 10 finalist, this competition will give our start-up the chance to give a three-minute pitch in front of 300 business professionals that can help keep our momentum going and take us to the next level of success – but we need your vote to win!

Between now and January 27, please cast your vote for rrripple in the Vator Splash competition.

Don’t have a Vator account? It takes just a minute to register with Vator to cast your vote, and you can choose to follow rrripple and be kept up to date on all of our company announcements.

You can also help us spread the word about rrripple by Tweeting or posting to your social media profiles mentioning @rrripple and using hashtag #vatorsplash!

Happy New Year from the rrripple team!

As 2009 comes to a close, our team has been taking a look back at all of the challenges and triumphs we faced this year – including the launch of our exciting new Web application and our iPhone app – which has made sharing of files and digital media safe and secure, the bumps in the road as we’ve continued to improve on our Beta product, and the tremendously positive feedback we’ve received from the press and from our earliest members.

As you make your New Year’s resolutions, we’ve been hard at work setting our own company goals for 2010. Among them, our three main goals for the coming year include:

1. Continuing to grow our user base by providing the best, most delightful user experience to privately share your life’s media with your real world groups of friends and family.
2. Extending our visual architecture to third parties (and continuing to integrate with them) to allow others to benefit from our core user interface for all their file-sharing needs
3. Introducing highly-demanded features: public groups (yep, they’re coming soon), profile pages, and premium services, as well as a Facebook application and additional mobile apps for Palm, Android, and others.

Helping You Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

While we work on improving our product for your use, we’ve also been thinking about how rrripple can help you meet your resolutions.

Our secure, private sharing capabilities make it simple for you to share your photos, videos, and files with those people who matter most to you – and not the anonymous masses on the Web – regardless of your contacts’ level of computer literacy. What does that mean for you? You can finally share those wedding photos from last Fall’s event with your wedding guests, or keep up with your resolution to send your parents more photos of their grandchildren – without sending large emails or using complicated sharing tools.

rrripple’s ability to store and share business files in the cloud will make it possible for you to get your professional documents – from Powerpoint sales presentations to spreadsheets and briefings – organized and online, where they can be accessed anywhere, from any computer – without risking the security of those documents.

rrripple’s iPhone app will help you privately post and share all of those photos that you’ve been meaning to sync to your computer, but haven’t had time to – perfect for protecting the hundreds or thousands of mobile photos you’ve been snapping in 2009 that are one drop of a phone from disappearing!

This Week

You may have noticed some changes to the rrripple interface, and some improvements in our performance (read: lots of bugs have been fixed). To wrap up the New Year, the team has released the latest iteration of rrripple, which comes complete with a completely revamped new Post user interface:

• Separated media tabs
• Multiple sharing capabilities let you select as many different groups and as many individual friends you wish to share with
• Facebook importing allows you to import/open your FB photos directly inside rrripple to share with your friends
• Video uploading!
• Thumbnail previews allow you to add tags, titles and descriptions to one or all of your uploaded media.

We’ve also fixed a number of bugs in our system, and made some adjustments to improve performance look and feel on our site.

Wishing You The Best in 2010

While we’ve been hard at work providing you with the best product possible, we realize that we owe a great debt of gratitude to our first adopters, who have entrusted us with their private media, provided invaluable feedback and suggestions for rrripple, and, without whom, we wouldn’t be the network we are today!

On behalf of the rrripple team, we wish you a happy, healthy 2010!

May it be a great one.

We want to wish everyone a very healthy and happy New Year, as we leave behind 2009 (and all its challenges) and step into a hopeful and brighter 2010.  We have a lot to be grateful for at rrripple and a lot to look forward to in 2010.  Here are some of those things:

Most important, our thanks goes to our team, their families and our devoted early adopters (you).  As a grassroots company with over 15 members sprinkled all over the world (Armenia, India, France, England, USA, etc), we have all shared in the highs of entrepreneurial good times as well as the lows of the equity market dive that started in late September of 2008.  With a shortage of cash, we relied on each other more than ever to push rrripple ahead, bit by bit (have fun with the pun), towards our Beta release earlier this year at the TechCrunch50 Conference in San Francisco.  And we did it!  Through an incredible effort by many, rrripple has been slowing adding new users each day, receiving feedback to better shape its product offering and gaining overwhelmingly positive press coverage around the globe (yesterday we found a Polish magazine writing about us).

Our goal for 2009 was to release our Beta and begin the iterative development process with our early adopter market.  We’ve done that, and now we’re looking forward to a really exciting 2010, where the rrripple visual architecture now gets to expand into new areas.  There are three main goals we have for rrripple in 2010:

1. Grow our user base by providing the most delightful user experience to privately share your life’s media with the groups and friends in your life;
2. Extend our visual architecture to 3rd parties (as well as integrate with them) to allow others to benefit from our visual core UI
3. Introduce highly-demanded features: public groups (yep, they’re coming soon), Profile pages (wait ’till you see how we’re going to do this) and Premium services for a certain percentage of our Premium Users.  We’ll also be releasing our Facebook application and additional mobile-compliant apps for Palm, Android and others (TBD).

And so, with a hopeful eye towards 2010, we wish you all the best year of your lives.  May you share in joy, health, peace — and may your sharing be private and secure. 

The rrripple Team

A great number of file sharing sites and applications compete for your attention today, with more creative (and lighter) versions of these being favored by users across different domains.  A quick Google search on the term ‘file sharing’ predictably showcase the traditional peer-to-peer services (like Limewire) and the more integrated apps — which do both backups of your hard drive and sharing (e.g. Box.net).  However, there is yet another model of file sharing — temporary transmission of one (or a few) files.

Temporary transmission of files (whether they be a large PowerPoint, PDF, Word, Excel, etc) has its own niche, and there are some great companies positioned in this realm (e.g. drop.io).  Their strength is in their robust back-end systems, allowing quick upload, processing, previewing and ultimately, downloads of multimedia.

So what’s the bridge between peer-to-peer systems on one hand, and the more robust back-end infrastructure plays?  Perhaps the bridge between both will be a visual user interface that can couple next-generation touch-based user interaction (think capacitive touch screens) with these existing back-end heavy products, to create a more engaging, easy to use and delightful user experience to share files with one another.

Users need the basic features, after all, for  file sharing.  But users are also now heavily nurtured in social media, so visual interfaces must also adapt to these social requirements.  Thoughtful, delightful visual experiences are no longer the realm of just your Apple products (as one clear example) but required more and more across the web — rippling their way across the file sharing space, too.

Tonight, at the Plug and Play center in Sunnyvale, we had the pleasure of sharing our presentation and a bit of our Flex application to a great group of smart, fun and entrepreneurial folks — SilvaFUG.  We enjoyed the opportunity to share our vision of group sharing on LifeFlow™ and appreciated all the feedback, ideas and possibilities that resulted from this group tonight.   Thanks to all who participated, especially Keith Sutton and the panelists.

On Saturday morning, we received an email from Apple announcing the acceptance of our free iphone application!  With the rrripple iphone app, you can pretty much do everything you would normally do on the web (including creating a new group, joining a group, posting photos, links and notes, and more).  This app really frees you to view and share just-in-time moments, privately, with the groups in your life.  For instance: you’re at a family event, you launch the rrripple app, select ‘family’ and start taking photos — within seconds, not only have those photos been uploaded directly to the ‘family’ group, but all group members (no matter how large the group) have been immediately notified that new photos have been added to the group!  It’s really that easy, and what’s more, group members can see (and download) high-resolution photos from their home computer to keep photos they like the most.  We hope you enjoy our free iphone application! Please help us improve it by sending us feedback, available from the ‘Settings’ icon on the lower right of the application.

We do a lot of thinking around groups and privacy. After all, we’ve built rrripple to address the importance of having control over what we share, and with whom.   To us, groups are at the core of our company — the bread and butter of our enterprise.  In regards to privacy: well, I think you’ll agree we’ve all been hearing about the importance of having (and keeping) control of what we share, and with whom.  The scenario of finding your shared thoughts, personal photos and other media files appearing in other social circles, networks or even countries is disconcerting, if not terrifying.  Yet, the technology to support secure, private sharing to discreet contacts is available.  Email for example, handles this well for those in your address book.  But step outside just one circle out, and you find yourself wading in an ocean of hyper social titanics, all vying to socialize your media.  We believe there is a middle ground between enjoying a large social gulfstream and a more personal, manageable sharing experience with those closes to you — and those perhaps just a circle or two outside your own little solar galaxy.

Has a shift toward private group sharing begun? We think so.  A lot of effort is being thrown at privatizing (through Privacy Settings) different networks across the net; a struggle to control the monster often created (sometime even inadvertently).  We also see the introduction of Google Wave, trying to control real-time ‘conversations’ and notice that several online backup (storage) companies are reversing themselves out to the sharing world by offering ’sharing’ features of your personal storage media. So, on the polar North, we have the largest networks trying to control their ‘hyper socialitis’, while on the other pole in the deep South, we have smaller networks adding incremental sharing features.  Possibly, we’re all aiming for the better, more manageable and digestible equator.  Or maybe just trying to fly past it.

We had a terrific time at TechCrunch 50.  Thanks to the TC50 folks for letting us in on such short notice, and to the many new friends, colleagues and new users we made at the event.