Pipe Enables Direct File Sharing Between Facebook Friends
Facebook serves as a sort of central social hub for a lot of Internet users, where one has easy access to acquaintances and a direct messaging system. While there are a lot of methods for hosting files online and sharing them with friends, Pipe is the first Facebook-integrated app that allows you to directly share a file with a Facebook friend, something accomplished via a drag-and-drop system.
While Facebook's system allows users to share some files by attaching them via direct messaging, there are limitations that restrict the system to being used for images, documents, and other small files that are 25MB or less. As such, it can be used to send a snapshot of your pet, for example, but not an HD video or personal audio album.
Pipe aims to remove that limitation by offering an integrated service that gives one Facebook user access to all of his or her other Facebook friends, who can then accept files directly to their computer. Files up to 1GB can be transferred. In order to send a file, the recipient must be online and ready to receive it – this is because it is sent directly from the sender's computer to the recipient's computer.
If a file needs to be sent and the individual on the receiving end isn't online, a maximum of 100MB can be sent, which will be stored in a locker for your friend to grab when they're online. According to the announcement, a user can utilize as many "lockers" as needed, no limitations in place. As we mentioned, the system works via drag-and-drop, with, as you can tell, a Mario Bros. theme being used to accomplish this.
Obviously, the files aren't being transmitted through Facebook, with the social network instead just being the platform upon which the app runs. The files are secure because they're delivered via a peer connection, and only the individual sending the files needs to have the Pipe app. The service has been in a limited beta thus far, but in the next approximately 19 hours, it will go live for anyone to use.
SOURCE: Pipe