Steve Iverson was like any 22-year-old college student formulating his senior thesis. Well, maybe he was a little more creative. His concepts on adaptive data compression algorithms led to the formation of Streamload, an online service that allows users to transfer large digital files such as music, photos and videos.

“I had been interviewing for ‘real’ jobs, but I saw something to make of this,” says Iverson, who founded Streamload several months after graduating from Pomona College. He is the San Diego company’s president and CEO.

Seven years later the technology behind Streamload has evolved, attracting a growing user base. The company counts more than 23,000 subscribers, and has reportedly hosted more than 2.5 billion files. Streamload has sustained profitability since June 2001.
Digital file transfer is not just for techies anymore, says Iverson. Even his mom has a digital music collection. It wasn’t a question of whether MP3s and other digital files would catch on, but when. “I would like to say it was tremendous insight, but the digital media market took longer to develop than anyone thought.”

Streamload’s further proliferation will require partnerships with larger companies that have mainstream users, says Iverson. To that end, Streamload recently forged an alliance with Milpitas-based Iriver, the nation’s third largest manufacturer of MP3 players. Streamload’s technology is expected to be included on 1.1 million Iriver players within the next year.

Iverson makes sure his company’s technology is used for more than commercial gain. Streamload has donated bandwidth and file storage to a number of organizations, including one with Sony last year. “Operation Video Care Package” set up kiosks at local shopping malls so that about 100 military families could film holiday messages for loved ones deployed overseas.