Kevin sent me an invite to Box.net (and here’s one for you, from me) which is Yet Another Online Storage Service, but a very cool one. Box.net is cool because (1) they have a nice API, (2) they enable mobile access to your files, (3) the site has a nice clean usable design, and (4) they have a company blog.
It was while checking out the Box.net blog that I read a post called Beating Google, in which Aaron Levie laments about Google and the as-yet hypothetical GDrive, and I felt a great deal of empathy. Replace the words “Box.net” with “Skweezer.net”, and references to saving files with viewing mobilized web pages on your phone and Aaron has captured the way I felt one year ago, more or less. At that time, my daydreams of Greenlight Wireless being bought by Google was somewhat deflated when they rolled their own Skweezer. By “somewhat deflated”, I mean I personally spent the better part of the day hyperventilating into a paper bag while Kevin talked me through it. A year later, the world hasn’t ended and I feel differently about it.
When Google enters a new space, the existing players are bound to question their survival. It doesn’t matter if you’re first, better, or less evil; Google is the $100 billion scary-smart internet company that even your mom uses. They have the brand, means, and possibly the will to crush you like a grape. If you are in the business of doing “X” and Google announces GX, the first thing to come to grips with is that Google probably won’t buy you, and also that probably no one else will buy you either, because who’d compete with Google? Of course there are exceptions, but the sooner you’ve rid yourself of the flipmeat mindset and concentrate on building a better business, the better.
There are several silver linings to being in Google’s shadow, but I shall concentrate on just one that’s germane to Box.net’s situation. Sometimes Google’s entering a market can build broader awareness of what is possible. In Box.net’s case, although some people may wait for GDrive, I think that many more people will suddenly realize for the first time that they can store and share files online. Or, they like the idea of what Google does, but if only it had feature X. GDrive may expand the online storage market in a way that Box.net can capitalize on if they’re smart and agile. Did Google Video destroy the online video sharing scene? Did Google Analytics destroy the web analytics market? Are there any other blog hosts besides Blogger? I believe that the explosion of mobilizing services has only been good for Skweezer by expanding market awareness, and the competition certainly makes us try harder.
Furthermore, we realize that Skweezer can not afford to be a one-trick pony, and so we have taken steps to make our product to do more than just mobilized browsing. Not that I know anything at all about the online storage industry, but I feel that Box.net is already well positioned to be more than just another storage service with features like photo galleries, tagging, sharing, RSS, blog integration, etc. My only suggestion for Box.net would be that there’s not enough in the free version that creates addiction. The free version should have the same features as the premium version, just less space. Box.net could partially encapsulate functionality of Flickr, YouTube, Dropload, Avvenu, and so on. By the time you use up 1 GB, you really would need it. But what do I know? I’ve had my Box.net account for a grand total of one day now.
So chill out, Aaron and the Box.net team. Focus. Wax on, wax off.
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