File sharing is not always about BitTorrent trackers and Direct Download Link forums. This popular phenomenon has given birth to a number of other innovative services that further simplify how large data is shared online. Today’s post is about one such service, FlashSeed. FlashSeed is essentially a mash up between BitTorrent and DDL. The service makes creating a torrent of a regular file and uploading it to a BitTorrent tracker basically a one click process. Furthermore, the service will act as a seeder and continue to seed the torrent for a period of 5 days. But that’s not all, FlashSeed can play the role of a one click hosting service and will even allow downloading uploaded torrents over direct download links. This is currently in beta but is open to all.

The main goal of FlashSeed is to make torrent uploads as simple as possible. We know, this is a way more simplified task than it used to be with most modern BT clients but this service makes it even more simpler. With FS, all you have to do is to hit the upload button and point to the file you need tracked as a torrent. There are no extra steps involved and a torrent download link (which you can share with others) will be generated once file uploading is complete. This is of course not without limitations. File storage is currently limited to 1GB and FlashSeed will only seed an uploaded file for 5 days (other peers will be able to seed/leech the file for as long as they like since the torrent will not be deleted from tracker – only the web seed will be removed after 5 days) .

Files uploaded as torrents can be directly downloaded from FS’s servers without the need for a BitTorrent client. You will however need FlashSeed points to do this. How the points system works is outlined below:

FlashSeed Points is a reward-based system to encourage seeding. Points may be used to download a file directly from our servers rather than through BitTorrent (useful for torrent-restricted environments, video streaming). 1 Point = 1 MB download credit. You will receive 1 point when: you upload 3 MB through our tracker

someone completes a file that you uploaded

Currently the service is in beta but is open to everyone. According to developers, the FlashSeed will continue to be free of charge but will be ad supported after public launch. It’s an interesting service nevertheless. Check it out.

Site Name: FlashSeed (http://www.flashseed.com)

Registration URL: http://www.flashseed.com/index/register

Special thanks to Jack Qiao for the heads up.