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Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

googleblog.blogspot.com

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Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#211
post #68

I recently upgraded to Dropbox @ $199/yr for 100gb to archive our digital photos. Yesterday MSFT skydrive offered 100gb for $50/yr. Today GOOG offers 400GB for $100/yr or 1TB for $256/yr. As a consumer with "offsite backup" in mind, there doesn't seem to be an inherently high switching cost to move services away from DropBox. As a result I think that they're going to need to reassess pricing strategy within the year.…

If you just wanted an offsite backup option, you should check out the startup backblaze.com

They're offering unlimited storage for $4/month.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#212

Here's one thing that bugs me; Google Drive seems to constantly use between 2 and 3% of my CPU time. That's wasteful. If I was on a laptop, this would be battery time, and on my desktop, I want those cycles to be used for distributing computing science, not random background processes that aren't supposed to be doing anything when idle.

That sounds bad. Since I am primarily a laptop user, I am very picky about which online sync and backup services I use based on the resource usage of their desktop clients.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth are you talking about? Google's infrastructure is so large it can handle the same sort of influx that Gmail would have generated, whereas back then they couldn't. Why on earth does that mean the company is run by marketing consultants?

the same reason 20% time is dead and requires management approval. do I really have to spell it out? (google maps started as an engineer fooling around with ajax).

google maps was an acquired product. It was modified to work in the browser.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#214
post #169

I just installed. And it seems like I cannot edit Google Docs using MSWord/OpenOffice on my computer... I though that is point of GDrive. Am I missing something?

Google docs are meant to be edited on drive.google.com

But if you drag MSWord docs into your local google drive folder, it will upload and sync to all your devices.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#215
post #188
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you have to ask (and that the question sounds credible) is a bad sign.

Why?

It is bad if they are launching a product from 2008, or launching a product that conceivably could have been done in 2008. If they were doing a dropbox clone they're four years behind, but as an above commenter mentioned, they aren't. I actually think this is a really good opportunity for Google to achieve their social ambitions. Rather than try to fight Facebook on their home turf Google can try to coalesce gmail/google plus/google docs/google drive into a kind of operating system replacement and build their social network around it, like a giant collaborative computing system. Time will tell though, superficially it looks like a lame google docs relaunch.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#218
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really shocking how absolutely mind-bogglingly ignorant people are when it comes to online privacy matters. A side note, but it's shocking how people are unable to believe that others are capable of making informed choices. Case in point: I use Facebook. I often get people hounding me- "don't you care about privacy?!?", "Facebook is using your data!" Yeah, I know. I don't mind. The way I see it, privacy is the…

You using Facebook is not a problem, because it doesn't affect me . However if you decide to use GMail or GA or Google Fonts or gWhatever, then it forces me into the picture and I really do not appreciate it. How would you feel if a private company would give away free surveillance cameras to the store operators in return for telling them how many people walked through their doors? Or how would you like your real-est…

> You would let someone observe you taking a shit in return for a free roll of tissue paper? This is wrong.

Holy slippery slope, Batman! There are plenty of reasonable arguments against Facebook, Gmail, etc etc. You went straight past all of them into tinfoil-hat territory without a second glance.

Arguments about surveillance cameras, free toilet paper, and other nonsense have absolutely no place in discussions about privacy on the web. None.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#219

wow. i didnt realize what an aesthetic achievement the dropbox sync checkmarks were until i saw the google drive ones...

Now I'm curious. Do you have a screenshot? (I don't have Drive yet)

EDIT: never mind, I can see them in the graphic on the announcement blog post. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OmO4AEPzKVE/T5bIDxKcD6I/AAAAAAAAJH...

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