Which free third-party services can I use to enable user content uploads (images/documents) to a web app?

Question

I'm looking for a workaround to allow user content uploads to a web app that does not permit it natively because of restrictive file limits with my hosting provider (it's all I can afford right now).

I need a free third-party web service for:

• Image uploads
• Document uploads

What I'm thinking is to use Flickr for image uploads and then use the Flickr api to access those images? Or is there an easier external service for integrating image uploads?

Regarding document uploads, if I want a user to be able to upload MS Word, Rich Text or PDFs to my app, is it possible to integrate Google Docs into my service if direct uploads are not possible. Or, again, is there some other service that allows this?

Am considering whether I need to use Amazon for uploads but because I'm unemployed I want to minimize expense as much as possible and try to use free external services as long as it doesn't become too cumbersome both for me to program and for the users of my application to use. There's always a risk when you direct someone to a third party that they will lose track of where they started and forget to come back :)

Would appreciate any suggestions.

Answer 1

Take a look at using a sky drive...or multiple sky drives.

Look here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/307696/does-microsoft-skydrive-have-an-api

And here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/904929/is-it-possible-to-upload-something-to-skydrive-via-net

This is 25 gigs...and you could have a multitude of accounts as mapped drives.

Answer 2

I use FlajaxianFileUpload on my site BootBootReboot.com, it works well for me.

Answer 3

Well, the first thing that comes to my that might help you is Google App Engine. I know that they give you a certain amount of space for free and then charge you Amazon-like rates once you go past the limits. You could write a small upload layer in Python (really really easy to use) and then write the rest of your web app elsewhere. The GAppEngine Team actually recommends using it for service APIs.

Otherwise I'd really recommend Amazon Web Services. I hate to say this but maybe you should consider charging a small amount for initial access, like an initial $5 donation then make those users your premium users for later on when you hit success. Jason Fried of 37 Signals says (and I agree) that free web apps will start to disappear faster and faster. I know it's not really a programming answer, but it is a reality of business. Having been unemployed for a long time only until recently, I do sympathize with your situation. Best of luck.

Answer 4

Try using amazonS3. It is cheap and appears to be a right fit as per your needs.