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Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

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Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#31

Post by Gormo »

jacquesm wrote: post #26
citricsquid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although Google launching Google Drive shows that they see value in a dropbox type system, what is that value? I can understand Youtube because video is a huge part of the internet and advertising, but what value is there in hosting peoples files? I can't work out where Dropbox would fit with Google.

Every video started out as a file somewhere. Dropbox could do an end-run around all of this with file viewers, including video. And spreadsheets and so on. It could easily end up bigger than youtube, even if the take-off is a lot slower. They're doing the right thing by keeping it simple as long as they can but I'm fairly sure they're savvy enough to have brainstormed each and every bit that they could add / leave ou…

They might do better maintaining Dropbox as a storage platform, and trying to get their storage API into as many web and mobile apps as possible.

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#34

Post by GoodIntentions »

nostromo wrote: post #24
ry0ohki wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, that's one of the biggest benefits of Dropbox, I tell someone I'll add a shared drive and 9 times out of ten they already have a Dropbox account (in my tech world bubble at least)

Times they already have a Google account: 10/10

Yeah, but some folks have come to the same conclusion as jacquesm ( above ) and use the big G as little as possible.

Sure, I have a google account. I almost never use it. For me, the epiphany came when my adsense account was suspended years ago. For what I never found out. I appealed and was reinstated. I then pulled adsense from every site. Lesson learned, and I don't need to learn it again.

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#35

Post by citricsquid »

jacquesm wrote: post #26
citricsquid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although Google launching Google Drive shows that they see value in a dropbox type system, what is that value? I can understand Youtube because video is a huge part of the internet and advertising, but what value is there in hosting peoples files? I can't work out where Dropbox would fit with Google.

Every video started out as a file somewhere. Dropbox could do an end-run around all of this with file viewers, including video. And spreadsheets and so on. It could easily end up bigger than youtube, even if the take-off is a lot slower. They're doing the right thing by keeping it simple as long as they can but I'm fairly sure they're savvy enough to have brainstormed each and every bit that they could add / leave ou…

So it fits in with their desire to bring all usable files to the cloud with google docs etc, okay that makes a lot of sense. Thanks! I don't use Dropbox regularly so I hadn't considered that people use it to share / manage files, I was only remembering about the desktop sync side of it.

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#36

Post by drivebyacct2 »

stuckk wrote: post #25

eh. 5Gb? Skydrive has like 25

Skydrive is a sad joke that points out how many easy opportunities Microsoft has to leap frog Android and iCloud. They already have a huge cloud platform. They are have millions of Live users. They're finally integrating Live accounts as Windows accounts.

They refuse to add dropbox like functionality to SkyDrive to make it possible to just have a set of files synced between all Windows (8, specifically) and WP devices. I've been told and have read various different reasons, but none of them were good.

edit: Scrap this post, my information is embarrassingly outdated. Kudos to SkyDrive. Glad to see Microsoft utilizing their Live accounts.

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#37

Post by magicalist »

robomartin wrote: post #21

OK, so now when they suspend your Google account you also get to experience loosing whatever you had in Google Drive. Just for this I am converting my Dropbox account into one of their paid packages to do my part in ensuring they stick around. One would hope that at one point Google might start to realize that the way they are handling accounts could work against their own interests. I --and I am sure others-- have e…

That's the reality of the cloud though, you're really just objecting to having all your eggs in one basket. There were legitimate users of megaupload that didn't break any ToS or host child porn, but they can't get any of their files back.

If it's like dropbox, though, it's probably the most likely google product that people will have backed up locally. I use selective sync with dropbox, but everything is on at least one of my computers.

It actually would be really cool if Google Drive was the ultimate data liberation tool...even if your account is closed, you already have all of your google account data (emails, docs, etc) backed up in your Drive folder locally.

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#38

Post by lawdawg »

robomartin wrote: post #21

OK, so now when they suspend your Google account you also get to experience loosing whatever you had in Google Drive. Just for this I am converting my Dropbox account into one of their paid packages to do my part in ensuring they stick around. One would hope that at one point Google might start to realize that the way they are handling accounts could work against their own interests. I --and I am sure others-- have e…

which free service (or service that pays you money, ala AdSense) has a better approach to customer service? Honestly curious because I hear a lot of complaints about Google, but I have a feeling that Facebook, Bing/Microsoft, etc aren't any better.

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#39

Post by RuggeroAltair »

Same reason I don't want $everything-facebook I also don't want $everything-google.

Plus google has little to zero experience at offering big products on non unix/android platforms.

EDIT: I didn't literally mean zero, since I'm writing from Chrome

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