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Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion

reuters.com

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Re: Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion

#21

Post by josephagoss »

chii wrote: post #16
NLPsajeeth wrote: post #6

"Dropbox tallied $116 million in sales last year, more than doubling its $46 million in revenue in 2011. The year before, it nearly quadrupled sales from $12 million." http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303...

i m flabbergasted at the amount of money there is in this service (and related ones) - is it really that useful? I had a dropbox account since the early days, and i have hardly put any use into it. What do people actually use it for? Share files? Backup solution?

I use it so my laptop and desktop share the same files. I can code on my laptop and once I get home I have my desktop ready to continue.

Re: Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion

#22

Post by leoedin »

chii wrote: post #16
NLPsajeeth wrote: post #6

"Dropbox tallied $116 million in sales last year, more than doubling its $46 million in revenue in 2011. The year before, it nearly quadrupled sales from $12 million." http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303...

i m flabbergasted at the amount of money there is in this service (and related ones) - is it really that useful? I had a dropbox account since the early days, and i have hardly put any use into it. What do people actually use it for? Share files? Backup solution?

It was exceptionally useful as a student when I was frequently using lots of computers. As a sort of USB stick in the cloud (with added shared-folders) it was brilliant. The sync, versioning and useful web interface "just work".

I can completely see that if you're a small team and are faced with the problem of shared folders, dropbox would be a good solution. It's not too expensive and a lot easier than setting up reliable and secure self-hosted file storage.

Re: Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion

#23

Post by homersapien »

chii wrote: post #16
NLPsajeeth wrote: post #6

"Dropbox tallied $116 million in sales last year, more than doubling its $46 million in revenue in 2011. The year before, it nearly quadrupled sales from $12 million." http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303...

i m flabbergasted at the amount of money there is in this service (and related ones) - is it really that useful? I had a dropbox account since the early days, and i have hardly put any use into it. What do people actually use it for? Share files? Backup solution?

Anything meaningful I do on my mobile devices - photos, files, etc. - gets backed up to Dropbox. It's 100% automatic, and has been a real life saver. I also use it as basically a virtual thumb drive to "move" files between work/home. I'm the exact opposite of you: I'm flabbergasted that people don't use it. That said, I wouldn't pay for it. There are much cheaper backup solutions (Crashplan).

Re: Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion

#24

Post by InclinedPlane »

ghshephard wrote: post #2

"Dropbox, which is increasingly competing with Microsoft and Google as well as fellow startup Box in the fast-growing field of cloud storage," This implicitly (if not explicitly) reverses the actuality, which is really: "Dropbox, which is increasingly facing competition from Microsoft and Google as well as fellow startup Box in the fast-growing field of cloud storage," They do a better job later on with, "Those featu…

I have a few friends who work at Box, that company seems much better at extracting revenue from its product via concentrating on the business rather than consumer space.

Re: Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion

#25

Post by netcan »

brador wrote: post #11

The problem I see is dropbox as a service becoming a commodity as competition in the sector ramps up. Apple is making a big push on cloud with airdrop and icloud, Tencent is offering 10tb storage. It's heating up and it's gonna be hard to maintain a viable USP.

IMO the underlying assumption of Dropbox's competitiveness is that it is not a commodity. 1GB with the right user experience is worth more than more with a worse UX. Commodity would imply that it's all about price per gb.

So far, I think that assumption has been right.

Re: Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion

#26

Post by weavie »

chii wrote: post #16
NLPsajeeth wrote: post #6

"Dropbox tallied $116 million in sales last year, more than doubling its $46 million in revenue in 2011. The year before, it nearly quadrupled sales from $12 million." http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303...

i m flabbergasted at the amount of money there is in this service (and related ones) - is it really that useful? I had a dropbox account since the early days, and i have hardly put any use into it. What do people actually use it for? Share files? Backup solution?

I use it as

- a backup. All important files, pictures go there. My phone automatically copies all my pictures to Dropbox. (although I occassionally move them over to Skydrive to keep within my limit)

- a git repository

- a way to share files between home / work / phone. (I rarely bother copying files over usb to my phone anymore. Memory sticks are gathering dust)

- a way to share files/photos with friends.

- a web server.. well more like a way to share html files with friends.

- an easy way to copy documents to Evernote (using Wappwolf)

Dropbox probably knows more about me than Google.

Re: Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion

#27

Post by stblack »

chii wrote: post #16
NLPsajeeth wrote: post #6

"Dropbox tallied $116 million in sales last year, more than doubling its $46 million in revenue in 2011. The year before, it nearly quadrupled sales from $12 million." http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303...

i m flabbergasted at the amount of money there is in this service (and related ones) - is it really that useful? I had a dropbox account since the early days, and i have hardly put any use into it. What do people actually use it for? Share files? Backup solution?

Dropbox has been a game-changer for me.

Maybe your interactions with technical people are different, or you don't share much between computers and devices?

Here's what's changed for me:

* 1:1 collaborations with people

* m:m collaborations within groups

* Me and my web servers are so, SO in sync :-)

* Sharing downloadable links to files and folders with people.

* Also: photo sharing because sharing a link to a folder of photos auto-galleries it.

Re: Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion

#28

Post by duaneb »

chii wrote: post #16
NLPsajeeth wrote: post #6

"Dropbox tallied $116 million in sales last year, more than doubling its $46 million in revenue in 2011. The year before, it nearly quadrupled sales from $12 million." http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303...

i m flabbergasted at the amount of money there is in this service (and related ones) - is it really that useful? I had a dropbox account since the early days, and i have hardly put any use into it. What do people actually use it for? Share files? Backup solution?

I switch computers. A lot. Dropbox makes my life much easier without any forethought.

Re: Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion

#29

Post by robbiemitchell »

chii wrote: post #16
NLPsajeeth wrote: post #6

"Dropbox tallied $116 million in sales last year, more than doubling its $46 million in revenue in 2011. The year before, it nearly quadrupled sales from $12 million." http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303...

i m flabbergasted at the amount of money there is in this service (and related ones) - is it really that useful? I had a dropbox account since the early days, and i have hardly put any use into it. What do people actually use it for? Share files? Backup solution?

Cross-computer synching and implicit mini backup. Most of active work of any kind is saved in dropbox folders so I can pull it up anywhere. My desktop folder is replaced by a folder called "Current" on dropbox.

Re: Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion

#30

Post by artmageddon »

chii wrote: post #16
NLPsajeeth wrote: post #6

"Dropbox tallied $116 million in sales last year, more than doubling its $46 million in revenue in 2011. The year before, it nearly quadrupled sales from $12 million." http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303...

i m flabbergasted at the amount of money there is in this service (and related ones) - is it really that useful? I had a dropbox account since the early days, and i have hardly put any use into it. What do people actually use it for? Share files? Backup solution?

I use it for both, but mostly sharing. Dropbox starts you off with 2GB but allows you to increase the size for free by referring other people, which I've been able to do. I've gotten it up to 8GB thus far. I don't rely on it to keep all of my most important data, since that goes well beyond 8GB, and I don't keep anything personally sensitive on there either. If my friends need something like pictures I've taken at a party, I'll put them on Dropbox and let them deal with it, rather than the hassle of email or setting up my own server.

While it's limiting, I like it a lot better than carrying USB sticks with me - I've lost a number of them over the when they'd eventually rip off my keychain :(

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