How is Cylive Useful?

Since the time we launched Cylive Beta a few days ago people have asked me what the site is all about. On hearing details of the application, most have tried pigeon-holing the application into an existing Web2.0 space. And, they have had difficulty doing so because the application is very unique and different from what exists out there!

So, here is a little 1-on-1 about what Cylive is about.

"One Roof" Concept
In the physical world, most of my belongings - books, CDs, DVDs, albums, magazines, files, etc. - are all at home under one roof. All items are pretty much stored, shared, displayed and showcased from the same location. The same principle pretty much applies to digital content on my personal computer.

So, why is it that in the virtual realm of the Internet, I have to upload my pictures into Flickr, videos into YouTube, bookmarks into Digg, blogs onto Blogger and so on, with each site requiring a separate ID / password? And, if I have to share my "digital assets" with friends and family, I have to either form groups on these sites, or resort to some good-old link-forwarding via e-mail. Not at all elegant!

We developed Cylive to function as a single destination on the Web for storing, sharing, publishing and distributing any digital stuff.

Publishing Freedom
Imagine watching "Planet Earth" on the Discovery Channel without getting an insight into the effort and the technology behind each clip. Wouldn't such a "commoditized" clip lack some of its appeal? Unfortunately, social media publishing sites - Picasa, YouTube, and the like - all adopt a one-size-fits-all approach. This means I am forced to publish, for instance, each of my photos with just a title, a brief description and some tags. A picture may be worth a 1000 words; regardless, a 1000 words may still be required to describe it.

And, what if I wish to share an album of my best photos along with a audio clip attached to each photo? Or, publish a recipe in my blog with a photo to go with each step? Isn't technology supposed to enable such "out-of-the-box" creativity?

So, we designed Cylive to support personalized media publishing. In other words, Cylive permits users to remix media-types - thus enabling "media mashups."

Content Diversity
Last year I tried publishing a table (of Web2.0 memetic attributes) in this blog. I realized there was no easy way of dong it. In fact, I discovered that "social applications" are all geared towards mainstream media types, i.e., audio, video, photos, etc. So, if I have to pubish and share my Oscar picks with my buddies I had to get my hands dirty in cumbersome HTML code. In other words, I had to become a HTML geek. Why?

Therefore, we architected Cylive in a way that makes it real easy for a layman like me to publish any information in a structured manner.

Shades of "Sharing" Gray
Just to make sure I had exposed the richness of Cylive in this blog entry, I wanted my colleague (and fellow Cylive co-founder) to preview it. So, I forwarded a copy of this text (via e-mail) for his critical review. Evidently, the "social" element of Blogger applies only to the 'sharing' of published content.

Most "social media applications" are deemed 'social' because they permit a two-way dialog between the producer and the consumer. But, what about collaborative content creation, i.e., simply co-creation? And, I am not just talking about blogging wikis (or blikis), but also rich media here.

Thus, we created Cylive to serve as a collaborative platform. Content owners can control "who gets to do what and when with content." For instance, all the invitees in my New Year Eve party can upload snaps (captured in their respective cameras) directly into a common photo album on Cylive.

Conclusion
In marketing and Web2.0 parlance Cylive is a "social publishing and content-management" platform. Forgetting the geek-speak, it really is the "site of the free" - it gives you the FREEDOM to express yourself in any way you deem fit. Come, take a test drive and find out how easy it is to become a "multimedia" Web publisher on Cylive!