A web-based ‘Send to Ubuntu One’ button has been unveiled by the Ubuntu One team.
The feature, which is still in development, allows you to insert a button on a website that readers can click on to ‘instantly deliver content to their Ubuntu One accounts’ – thus cutting out the need to manually download > sync a file, folder or archive.
“Your customers/users won’t have to waste time downloading files to their desktop or mobile,” says the Ubuntu One team of the new feature.
“Instead when they press ‘Send to Ubuntu One’ it will move the content they want directly to their Ubuntu One account. So when they log in to Ubuntu One the content is there and on all their devices ready to be synced or streamed at their convenience.
Examples of the button in use can be found on the Sci-Fi London website.
‘Neat – but needed?’
With around 40% of Ubuntu users making use of Ubuntu One, the ‘Send To..’ button could prove helpful, if only for the steps it removes from adding content to your Ubuntu One account.
But as neat as it is, is there a need for it?
- Podcasts, audio and video content – This makes sense – the files are large and, with tools like Ubuntu One Music Streaming available, you may wish to access the content from different devices and locations.
- Software purchases/downloads? Maybe, but that’s what the Ubuntu Software Center is for.
- Pictures are viewed online instantly, and their sizes small enough to make any ‘added’ hassle in downloading them elsewhere negligible anyway.
- eBooks and online magazines? That could work – especially for those syncing Ubuntu One to tablet devices.
- Archives of files/etc? Again, that’s a plausible use case.
Hopefully some extra features and use cases for the button will pop up during its development.
But for now, i’m not sure that anywhere outside the warm niched bosom of Linux will employe it in use.