Private cloud service Younity adds a group chat feature for sharing media files

Younity has added a chat feature to its peer-to-peer file management service. Users will now be able to leave comments on music, video and photos that they share with their friends.

Update: The new feature hasn’t arrived in the iOS app yet, but is scheduled for release soon.

While the startup already includes support for external social services like Instagram, it decided to add a private social element to its service after discovering that many of its users were turning to messaging apps like WhatsApp to discuss the files they shared.

Younity makes your files available over an Internet connection without exposing you to the risks of the public cloud. It communicates between your devices via a P2P connection so that Younity never has access to your files. CEO Erik Caso claims that if hackers broke into Younity’s servers, the only information they’d find on you is your email address.

The one drawback to Younity is that you need to keep your device powered on to access files from it, but it’s a small price for keeping your data close to home.

Younity’s ultimate goal is to act as a master filesystem UI that’s agnostic to which device your files are on. When the company rolls out the second half of its platform, it plans to offer a thin client for devices like TVs and consoles while also adding intelligent features for moving your data around so that you have access to important files even when the original device that stored them is offline.

➤ Younity

Thumbnail image credit: Younity