In just a couple of days, Virgin America Airlines and Google are teaming up for the “Day in the Cloud Challenge.”  While literally up in the clouds, Virgin is hoping to highlight their in-flight wi-fi access by allowing flyers to compete in this Cloud Computing scavenger hunt (though we Earth-dwelling mammals will get to participate too).

From their site:

On June 24th, we hope you’ll join us from the ground or onboard any Virgin America flight for the Day in the Cloud challenge, a scavenger hunt unlike any you’ve ever clicked through. All you’ll need is a net connection, a Google Account, and the warm, comforting glow of your computer screen.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this, but nice to see non-tech companies embracing our beloved Cloud.  We’ll all get our heads (and directory structures) up there soon enough.

Check it out at: http://www.dayinthecloud.com/

As you have probably noticed (unless you’re somehow using divShare on a 16 color VGA screen), the entire look of the divShare site has been updated.  We hope you like the new colors, logo, etc., but the most exciting changes are still on the way!  We want to make this the easiest way to share, post, and store all of your important files on the Internet.

Don’t keep your only copy of priceless photos, videos, and work files on your hard drive–back them up quickly and easily to your divShare account!  Never lose a photo, never bounce an email, and never share a broken link!

We hope you like the changes we’re making, and please know we’ll never stop improving your divShare experience!

Google has announced their new Google Wave, an online collaboration tool by the same people that came up with Google Maps.

According to blogger Reuven Cohen at ElasticVapor:

“Busy day for cloud interoperability related news. Google just announced a new service called Google Wave, described as an open communication and collaboration platform & protocol based on hosted XML documents (called waves) supporting concurrent modifications and low-latency updates. In simple terms Google Wave can be thought of like an ajax spreadsheet over XMPP. “

Check out his entire article at: http://www.elasticvapor.com/2009/05/google-jump-into-cloud-wave-ajax-over.html

G.ho.st is a quasi-OS for The Cloud, and it’s been reported they want developers to write apps on top of their technology, using The Cloud instead of desktops.

Read Write Web describes the G.ho.st services as:

A fabulous, ambitious virtual operating system, G.ho.st launched at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco two years ago. The browser-based computers allow users to leave their desktop, files, and applications in the Amazon-hosted cloud and access them from just about any place or device with an internet connection.

It’s great to see The Cloud as a more useful platform for productivity, and obviously divShare looks to help lead the charge in this.  See the entire story on this at: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ghost_virtual_computing_adds_api.php

As most divShare users know, we recently implemented Facebook Connect, not only allowing you to easily access your divShare files using your existing FB account login, but to also create privacy settings within Facebook itself! This is the first service of it’s kind, and fixes one of the fundamental flaws in Facebook, that once you post something, everyone can see it no matter who they are!!! Do you want your co-workers seeing your baby pics?  Do your friends care that you got a new plaque that says “Top Earner, Q1 2009, Mid-Atlantic Region”?  Of course not–now you can set who sees what.

You publish, you control, right? Yep.

Check out this video of the Facebook experience without divShare Privacy controls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrlSkU0TFLs

However, because of how Facebook’s APIs work, our users have found some considerably slower performance when using their dashboard within FB.  Unfortunately there is little divShare can do about this, but please know we are petitioning Facebook to optimize the data transactions.

Another item of note concerning Facebook… they just came out with their new, much ballyhood Privacy Policies, allowing for more openness.  In our opinion it falls short of what we’d want.  Read Write Web kind of feels the same: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/despite_new_openness_facebook_remains_fundamentall_1.php

Yahoo! is shutting down Jumpcut, their online video storage, editing, and sharing service.  The service was not able to compete with YouTube, and you can be sure their overhead was killing them (just as you can be sure YouTube’s is causing sleepless nights to some over at Google).

Take a look at what The Wall Street Journal’s Kara Swisher had to say about this at: http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090416/yahoos-jumpcut-jumps-off-cliff-but-you-can-send-your-videos-to-yahoos-flickr/.

Yahoo! is letting Jumpcut customers move their videos over to Flickr, but making them download them, then upload them again.  Sounds less than user friendly.

Just an interesting article in the N.Y. Times we thought we’d share.  These are the types of stories the divShare team passes around during our discussions of the Internet’s growth and evolution.

Should Online Scofflaws Be Denied Web Access?

Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that YouTube is draining a staggering half a BILLION dollars from Google’s bottom line:

http://www.businessinsider.com/analyst-youtube-will-take-half-a-billion-off-googles-bottom-line-this-year-2009-4

It’s no surprise that the video giant is consuming so much in hardware and bandwidth resources, but we’ll be interested to see if the really smart guys & gals at Google figure out how to turn the online TV service profitable. After all, isn’t that why we start businesses in the end?

DivShare has enabled Facebook Connect, so it’s easier than ever ro access your DivShare files. Want to know a bit more about how Facebook Connect works? Read the below excerpt takn from http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php:

Facebook Connect is the next evolution of Facebook Platform - enabling you to integrate the power of Facebook Platform into your own site. Enable your users to…

• Seamlessly “connect” their Facebook account and information with your site
• Connect and find their friends who also use your site
• Share information and actions on your site with their friends on Facebook

The DivShare team is working hard to make sure you can share your files as easily as possible.?‚? Since so many of you are on Facebook, it’s important that we provide you the best publishing/sharing experience there, and you’ll see us continue to make this process easier and easier.?‚? Make DivShare your defacto file tool for FB!

When it was announced that DivShare was for sale in late 2007, the tech blog TechCrunch put the site into their “Deadpool,” assuming the end was near.  But DivShare was actually doing quite well, providing a valuable service to a large and always growing user base, the whole time growing the infrastructure to match.

When DivShare was bought by 3Sixty Enterprises, we talked with TechCrunch, and convinced them that not only was DivShare not dead, but was storming into the future with a serious strategic vision. It is our customers who will benefit most.  Check out the latest TechCrunch article, 3Sixty Fishes DivShare Out of the Deadpool