It's my data

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:24:00 GMT

The recent release of Photoshop Express has got me thinking about the growing trend of web sites allowing users to upload their own content. Just think about any site like flickr, Facebook, etc that allow you to upload your own photos. I was initially intrigued by the release of Photoshop Express but, now that I've looked at the test drive, it doesn't really offer anything for me. There's no denying that it's an amazing piece of engineering and the UI looks fantastic, but I don't get the overall concept. It's software as a service (SaaS), but you need to upload your photos to the Adobe servers. And this is the part that I have an issue with.

Regardless of the bandwidth requirements (i.e. my upload speed is much slower than my download speed, although this will undoubtedly change in the future), I don't necessarily want to upload my private data to the cloud. And I don't see why I should; it's mine and I don't want anybody else to have access to it, particularly with the dodgy EULAs that some of these services and subjecting users to. Give me an AIR version of Express that I can use locally and I'll take a look, but only provided that I don't have to upload my data.

The thing I'm left wondering is how something like web-based e-mail is different. That's also my data and it sits on "the cloud". Perhaps the fundamental difference is that e-mail is "connected" and my photos aren't?

Simon Brown - cloud tag

It's my data