So What, Who Cares (vol 2, issue 12) Why cloud storage is suddenly a fascinating business to watch
Hello! I wanted to update you all on the media inventory of the past 82 newsletters: I have found out the hard way that Amazon Listmania Lists only let you enter forty items, max. I will be thinking of other ways for you all to get a one-stop reference for all the stuff name-checked in these past issues.
If you have any suggestions, please shoot them to me via email or Twitter. Going by prior reader correspondence, you're a smart bunch and you may have a solution I have not considered. I promise to give full credit where credit is due.
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Dropbox has gone on a shopping spree and bought itself some brand new tricks. The cloud-based storage company made a savvy move last year by partnering with Microsoft and expanding its functionality to "cloud-based storage company that is turning its platform into the de facto OS for cloud-based, collaborative work."
And now, it's building on that position. Last week, the company bought CloudOn, a company known for its "mobile document creation and editing tool." And this week, it announced the purchase of Pixelapse, a cloud-based version control system favored by designers.
What this means is that Dropbox is going to be a common cloud workspace where you and your colleagues can edit Microsoft Office documents together, check and modify your work from your phone if need be, and rest assured you can roll back any unwanted modifications thanks to a version control system. All for a tidy fee, most likely.
So what? Is this shopping spree a defensive move against Box.com? Maybe. The Dropbox rival had a strong IPO last Friday, surging past the projected $14 per share opening to close at $23.23 -- a 66% rise in value in one day that put the company's market cap at $2.7 billion. This was despite Box.com spending much of 2014 defending its business practice of losing $168.6 million in fiscal year 2013.
The Box.com IPO tells us two things: first, people who love to make money are betting that online storage will be a big moneymaker eventually, especially as the emphasis shifts from "Hey, pal, we can swap files back and forth via this cloud-based service!" to "Look, everyone! Google and Salesforce have integrated their remote cloud offerings into an entire workflow suite." Creating the tool that everyone uses to do their job is a license to print money.
Second, if your IT department has been fighting a battle against remotely-hosted cloud based services -- and some still are -- this may be the year the head of IT starts negotiating a peace treaty with the cloud.
Who cares? This is something to pay attention to because we're at an inflection point for cloud storage and how people use it. The idea that it will be normal and standard to store all your work -- and indeed do that work -- anyplace other than your desktop is a fairly radical one.
Look for businesses to duke it out by pressing any one of the following advantages: superior security and privacy (a la Box.com); the opportunity to seamlessly integrate with its pre-existing cloud-based tools like word processors or worksheets (a la Google Drive); or via strategic partnerships that expand its user base and shift the focus from "I'm putting things in the cloud" to "So, I saved the file to our project folder" (Dropbox).
There will be acquisitions. And we will see a rash of hyperspecialized cloud storage services -- "It's like Dropbox, only for animated GIFs!" -- because "It's like the [X] of [Y]" is a business model that always pops up when people are following a market that's booming.
Know who else should care? You. Keep an eye out for how all the moving and repositioning in the multibillion-dollar cloud storage market will affect users who have been quietly using freebie accounts all this time.
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And in the latest from the "Print: It's a nifty way to expand your brand with people who want to spend money" beat ... retailers are revamping their paper catalogs so they look more like gorgeous, eye-candy magazines.
So what? Until I read this, I did not realize how lucrative catalogs were for the retailers who send them out. In 2000, Lands End cut back their catalog mailings and lost $100 million in sales.
That impact has only increased: 90 million Americans make purchases from catalogs annually, and consumers who receive catalogs spend an average of $850 on catalog-driven purchases annually. Multiply those two numbers^ and you get $76.5 billion dollars flying out of shoppers' pockets thanks to catalog presentations.
^ In this case, I am assuming that the number of people who make purchases from catalogs = the number of consumers used to arrive at the $850 average. However, this may not be the case. Or it may be possible that there is a cadre of devoted J. Crew Collection shoppers who are juking the stats for the rest of us.
Who cares? You know, the journalism trade is collapsing. Perhaps it's time to start writing "decorating small space" features for Crate & Barrel ...
I am only partially kidding. Catalogs that feature "editorial" spreads -- Anthropologie, Patagonia, etc. -- are firmly in the premium brand experience category, one that's already been colonized by the retail-magazine hybrid of subscription boxes (vol 1, issue 34). So look for retailers that want to extend the luxury brand experience (vol 1, issue 52), or imply they have one, to be hiring editorial talent.
I understand several former Sports Illustrated photographers may be looking for a new gig.
Hat tip: I got this link from @sarahdelekta's Twitter stream. She's got a nice mix of enterprise IT news and links that are just plain fun and informative to read.
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Your pop culture note of the day: I'm just going to leave this link to Biz Markie's "Just Friend," as synced to footage of Rowlf the Muppet riiiiight here. It doesn't make me laugh quite as hard as Beaker's cover of "Dust in the Wind" does, but I do admire skillful editing.
My self-promotional pop culture note of the day: The Incomparable's latest book club, which covered Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, The Peripheral by William Gibson, and Slow Apocalypse by John Varley, is available. I especially enjoy the title, Eat Pray Love Die Survive.
Also, we have the first-ever Flash flashcast, where @moze, @tsindelar and I try to discuss The Flash speedily ... and fail. We did a podcast post-mortem and this week's episode will be tighter, featuring soon-to-be regular segments like "Dr. Wells' Wellness Check" and "The Moment Where I Said 'Shut up, Cisco.'"
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