Russell Beattie: "Box.net Gets It"

[Darius Wey]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008887.html' target='_blank'>http://www.russellbeattie.com/noteb...ok/1008887.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"There's a lot of things I like about <a href="http://box.net/">Box.net</a> - starting with its name. It's short, descriptive and a real word. I don't know how they managed to land it, but it's great. It may seem trivial, but you've got to have a good name. On top of that they've got a nice site with a clean design, and a very clear service and value proposition for their customers: Free online storage with premium plans for higher-end customers. Though it's been done before in one form or another, it's an obvious need - how many hacks out there did we see that turned your 2GB of GMail into an online storage system? So right off the bat, these guys are winners in my book - good name, nice design, a service with obvious value and a monetization system right away. Okay, so they're not pushing the envelope in terms of "changing the world" right now, but I'll cut them some slack on that. Why? Because they've got mobile support. W00t!"</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20060316-Box.gif" /><br /><br />We're starting to see a lot of personal remote access services available - for example, FolderShare, Orb, and Avvenu. Now check out <a href="http://box.net/">Box.net</a>. Cool name, and according to Russell Beattie, cool service too. I'll probably give Box.net a spin this weekend when I have a bit of time up my sleeve, but if you've already tested it before, let us know what you think. :)

[milaremi]

I'm currently filling up my online "box" by using their desktop synching app (still in "sorta" beta) and I must say, it's very simple (right click windows explorer functionality) for synching, uploading and sharing files.

Box.net is a great little startup that's going to have to fight the good fight against the "big guys" or be eaten up by Google Drive (Gdrive?) or be eclipsed by them. They're going to need to keep innovating and they seem to have that mentality well in mind. RSS feeds are already available for file upload updates and their m.box.net functionality (mobile) still needs to be fully implemented - but it should be quite handy for us mobile users - as long as we can run Java or Flash based mobile browsers...

From what I gather this small group of intrepid coders are working around the clock to get all of these goodies up to snuff.

The price for their service is also great as long as you don't plan to be uploading huge media files...$50.00/year (or 5 bucks per month) for 5 gb of off-site/web based storage is well below the cost of the competition.

Let's hope they'll have a large enough customer base when the "big guns" get into the online storage biz and that they can stay the course!

[dave]

so essentially what he's saying is... Mark Cuban gets it.

what a genius.

[rickmahn]

I also am filling up my "free" 1GB account. www.Box.net seems to be a good service - including the pricing, much lower than most "backup" and online storage services.

As milaremi mentioned, its easy to use and fairly straightforward for an average user. Haven't tried it with my new MDA, but I'll try to make time tomorrow for that.

Neat service if you get the chance to try it out, and with a free 1GB account - it's worth a look.

[beq]

I found Box.net recently mentioned in the following thread (where other people were asking for 5 referrals to get the free premium account):

http://www.emailaddresses.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&amp;threadid=41929

But some people there liked another service that will also open for beta soon:

http://www.omnidrive.com/

Their blog (http://www.nik.com.au/archives/2006/02/01/omnidrive-sweeps-comparison/) mentions unique capabilities...


Anyways, Box.net looks good, but does it have enough benefits compared to established services like Streamload.com (which I subscribe to and which provides unlimited storage, but metered downloads)? Does Box.net support FTP access to your storage account space?

I'm also getting Infrant's ReadyNAS NV (the best SOHO-priced network-attached storage product I've found), and my hope is that it will support backup to one of these online storage sites.

[uwaku]

I signed up this morning, uploaded a few .cab files for a test, then went there using PIE on my MDA. Navigation, loggin in, etc are all good, but the mobile download feature wasn't working. Sent a "wtf" email to support, and TWO MINUTES LATER got a personal reply that it'll hopefully be turned on tomorrow, and a few questions on the experience. I'm very impressed so far and will continue to post my experiences.

My main thing for it is storage of Mapopolis maps so that I don't have to carry them around on cards. Fly to a new city and don't have the map? Just login to m.box.net and download the ones I need.