Orkut, LinkedIn, and Xdrive

I'm often asked by friends and relatives to recommend an assortment of IT software and services. Since I often have to do some background research, or at a minimum, write up my thoughts on the topic, I figure I might as well post my opinions here, for all to see. This will be the first post in the series.

Social Networks

One of the most popular categories of online services, recently, has been social networking. Social networks are the backbone of society, making connections from person to person. Some networks are forced, such as classmates, coworkers, neighbors. Others develop naturally based upon common interests. Networking services are nothing new to the business community, but over the past several years, a number of companies have taken social networks digital.

Orkut

Now, you can enter your address book online, encourage your contacts to do the same, and quickly make connections with friends of your friends of your friends. I've been using two such networks. The first is called Orkut and is owned by Google. Orkut is primarily designed for casual networking among friends. It is also very liberal in making connections. You can essentially drill down one connection after another without limit. While interesting, I have not yet found much use for it. Google has suspended new accounts - if you want to get connected, you'll need an invitation from someone already on the inside. (If I know you, send me an e-mail and I'll invite you.)

LinkedIn

The second networking service I've been using is called LinkedIn. Contrary to Orkut, LinkedIn focuses entirely on making new business connections. This is a service that tends to be more geared toward executives, but is great for managers and recruiters at any level of an organization. The main draw here is the abililty to add "endorsements" to your online profile. You can request colleagues to write up an endorsement for your work for all to see. You have the opportunity to post or not post the endorsement, so don't expect to see any negative comments out there. With LinkedIn, you can't just drill down through connections and users can limit who is allowed to make contact through them. For example, I can require that former coworkers go through me prior to connecting with current coworkers.
Online File Storage

I'm going to switch gears now and talk about an online file storage service that I just recently started testing. Online file storage is a great way to back up your important files and make them available anytime, anywhere. I would strongly recommend that with any online service, you keep a local copy in the event that the online service fails (for technological or business reasons). Google is rumored to be working on a service called gdrive for online file storage, but since it's not available yet, I've been poking around for an alternative.

Xdrive

The best I've seen so far is Xdrive. I'm trying out their 15 day free trial right now. Initial impression is good, but not great. Their web interface is clean, easy to use, and their desktop applications allows you to manipulate your online files like you would local files. Their main web site hypes up all of their features, but it seems that most of their services are limited to Windows computers running Internet Explorer. I had no trouble getting to the web interface with Firefox on Windows, but the "direct download to Xdrive" appears to be an IE-only extension. For an initial test of the "Xdrive Plus" plan (5 gigs for $9.99 per month), I copied about 180 MB up to my drive. It took quite a bit longer than I would have liked (about 10-15 minutes) but I will withold final judgment till I try it from multiple locations around the Internet. Also, their mobile service did not work from my Blackberry.

To back up all of my photos, music, etc, would require about 15-20 GB of space right now, so their basic service falls short in that category. They do have a 50 GB plan, but it's only annual and costs $300. While $25 per monthy seems reasonable for that amount of space, it's more than I'm willing to pay right now. For now, I think I'll give it the 15 days and maybe a month or two at $10. If Google does come out with an online file storage service, I'm sure it'll be slick, integrate with gmail, and extra space will probably be cheap.