Collaborative-storage provider Box.net on Tuesday announced that it had acquired Mountain View, Calif.,-based Increo Solutions, a company with two Web products: Embedit.in and Backboard.
Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Embedit.in, which was launched in June, lets users post and share their documents in the cloud using an Adobe Flash-based viewer. And Backboard, which is the company's only paid product, lets users get feedback and collaborate on projects using that same document viewer.
In a company blog post on the acquisition, Box's community manager, Sean Lindo, said these products will continue to run independently but that both would later be integrated into Box.net as added features.
Storage provider and collaboration service Box.net is launching a mobile extension to its OpenBox platform of application programming interfaces on Thursday. The updated platform will enable iPhone app developers to make better use of the service's cloud storage, giving users access to their files across mobile applications on the iPhone and soon other platforms.
The idea is that users will be able to save whatever they're doing on the phone to Box's cloud storage service, as opposed to their servers or the device itself. It's similar to the way the smartphone can natively send some files to places like Apple's MobileMe service and Google's YouTube. Users can then make edits to those files using other applications, subsequently syncing back up the next time they launch the iPhone app.
As part of the new program, Box has already given a handful of developers access to the new APIs. These include Pixelpipe, JotNot, iRec, and iThoughts, all of which are releasing new versions of their apps that will be able to access and save to a user's Box account.
What's missing here are Box's servers, which are doing all the heavy lifting. But the idea is the same--your data flows freely between mobile and desktop apps, all through Box.
(Credit: Box)Beyond productivity apps, the new APIs allow for any kind of data to be sent over, which opens up transfers from generic things like text files, photos, and videos into things like game saves and user settings. A Box representative told me that while gaming would not be a focus of the API, a developer's implementation of it would not be discouraged.
Considering the heavy saturation of cross-platform games on the iPhone, it could quite easily give developers a way for gamers to continue the game they were playing on another device, making Box a valuable storage locker.
Web storage provider and collaboration tool Box.net has launched three new features aimed at giving its business users more customization, and simpler ways to set up collaborative workflow.
The first is tasks, which are action items you can assign to specific files. To start with, the service gives you three actions (approve, update, and review) that can be applied to yourself or someone else. Say, for example, I have an article I'm writing and saving in Box. When I'm done with it, I can assign my boss to either review or approve it. The same goes for updating something like a list of phone numbers or e-mails; I can send that out to multiple collaborators, telling them to add the information in the context of an action that can be kept track of.
You can choose from one of three premade tasks, or make your own.
When anyone finishes a task, the service gives them the option to add a customized response. That message gets sent to the person or group who assigned it, while crossing out the original task request that lets you track who did what during or after a project. What isn't saved, however, are any custom tasks you've created in case you want to reuse them on other projects at a later date.
Along with the addition of tasks, business users now have the option to brand Box's workspace with a company logo and color scheme. Any other users in your team will see this when they use the service, as will anyone you've given file-reading privileges to.
Secondary to this, Box is now letting business users create what it's calling "global" folders, which get their own URL that the creator can choose. Similar to what Dropio provides, this is a permanent place where anyone can get at whatever files are there, as long as they have the URL. They can also subscribe to the folder and get e-mail notifications as soon as new files are added. Unlike Dropio, however this cannot be done via RSS--you have to sign up for it using your Box.net credentials.
These new features continue to round out Box, which is smartly trying to break out of being perceived as a place for users to dump their files. With tasks, branding, and the recently released Web document editor, it's getting much closer to being a do-everything-in-the-cloud service.
If you're sharing a folder with its own vanity URL you can change the way it looks to others as well.
(Credit: CNET)
Box.net has added iSpeech to its OpenBox platform, which lets users get integrated text-to-speech conversion on any text document they have stored on the service. Users simply have to add it to their list of used OpenBox services and it becomes a part of Box.net's contextual menus, meaning you only need to right click on the document and choose the text-to-speech option to get it going.
You do have to be separately signed up with iSpeech to get this to work. It's not a free service when it comes to processing full length documents. There is, however a free tier of service that gives you 250 words per conversion, which amounts to a couple of paragraphs. If you feel like converting your doctoral thesis you'll need one of the service's premium plans.
While neat, I think a far more useful add-on to Box, or any other storage provider would be converting audio recordings into text documents. I've recently become hooked on this with my voicemail through Google Voice, and it would be great get a recording from an interview, or business meeting transcribed in the same place I'm storing it in the cloud.
A right click on any document file will let you convert it to speech using iSpeech. You have to be registered with that service to use it though.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Box.net is rolling out a new version of its search engine that lets users search for information found within the files they've stored on the service. Previously its system only worked with file names and user-created tags. The new tool will index text within Microsoft Office documents, PDFs, user descriptions, and Box.net's recently-added Web documents service.
This is an important feature to add, and one that's long overdue. For things like videos and image files it was not a big deal since the built-in preview tools made viewing the content within your folders quite simple. For documents, however, the only real quick way to go about hunting through them was to name them properly the first time, or use an appropriate OpenBox service to preview the file within your browser. For businesses or individuals with a large number of files stored on Box's servers, both of these solutions break down quickly.
The company is rolling this out to users, both free and business accounts, over the next few weeks.
Search results now go through your saved files to find words or phrases within. You also get a preview of what it found.
(Credit: Box.net)
Online storage service Box.net has a new tool for internal collaboration. Multiple Box users can now work on a shared Web document, using a built-in editor the company has made from scratch.
While there is no option to work on a single document at the same time, like you can with Google Docs and Zoho Writer, it features all the things you'd want for putting together a sturdy document. You can pick from various fonts, format to your heart's content, and drop in photos--either from your hard drive or a URL. All the while it saves what you're doing and even lets you roll back to an earlier version if someone has gone in and botched something. You cannot, however, see what was added or replaced without first opening up the file.
Box.net's new Web document creator is simple and easy to use. It's lacking real-time collaboration though, meaning only one person can edit at a time.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Permissions have also been handled with some convenience in mind, although there are definitely some rough edges. If you start a document in a folder you're already sharing with other people they are automatically chosen as collaborators. You can then go in and choose whether you want them to be able to edit the document, or simply view it.
Oddly enough though, you can't send collaboration invites from a virgin document; something I'm assuming will be fixed in short order. In the meantime you need to do this from the folder where the document resides. Here you're given the option to send an invite either as a viewer, or an editor.
If you're sending the document to someone who is not a registered Box.net user, they'll need to sign up for the service to edit it. This is where I found it to be a little buggy, since the service doesn't even give them an option to skip registration and begin editing as a registered guest, or simply see a read-only version of the document. In its current iteration they either need to sign-up, or get you to re-send the invite to view only before they can even lay eyes on it.
Despite this niggle, this feature is off to a good start, and a smart way to extend the recently pumped-up collaborative features. I would have been happier to see it replaced with third-party services that let you do the same thing via Box's OpenBox service, but in this case, these documents can be a great natural extension for the service's built-in discussion tools.
Transferring a large file isn't always easy. When e-mail won't work (which it often doesn't for files of any heft), you can burn to a disc or send a file piecemeal, but neither option provides much value to the person who just needs your file now, and simply.
Online file-sharing services can transfer large files for you. To use these services, you upload your file to them, and then your recipient gets a link to the download. The file itself doesn't go through e-mail, just the link to it. Let's look at a few different products that perform this service.
Box.net
Box.net may be billed as a service designed for companies, but it's equally useful for consumers.
Overall, Box is extremely easy to use and its interface is second to none. After signing up for an account, you can upload a file of up to 1GB in size, add comments to it to provide some context for other users, and save it to a single folder or multiple folders on the site. Once the file is uploaded, you can e-mail or IM a Box link to others, who can then download that file to their local machine. You can even create a shared workspace and work together online. Whether it was uploading the file or using that shared workspace, Box provided me with an outstanding experience.
One of Box's best features is its customizable widget. After heading to its widgets page, you can upload files, customize the look and feel of your widget, and share it with others by embedding it in your Web site or blog. You can keep adding files until you hit the 1GB limit. It's a really neat feature and a great way to share files that you don't mind keeping unsecured. I created my widget (right) in under a minute.
Unfortunately, Box only provides 1GB of storage a 25MB upload limit for free. If you need more than that, the company charges $7.95 for 5GB of storage and 1GB uploads or $15 per user per month for businesses that want 15GB of storage and 1GB uploads.
Dropbox
Dropbox is similar to Box because it allows you to upload files and share those with others. But in order for them to see the files, the service requires you to add them as authorized users.
Once you sign up for Dropbox, you can immediately start uploading files and creating separate folders to control access to documents. Once a folder is created, you can share it with others by inputting their e-mail addresses into the sharing box on Dropbox. The service then sends those users a link to sign up and start sharing access to the folder.
Dropbox makes it easy to upload files.
(Credit: Dropbox)Uploading files in Dropbox is simple and generally zippy. If you want to create a photo gallery that can be viewed by anyone, the site boasts a Photos section where you can upload pictures. And although it works as advertised, it doesn't compare to nicer galleries like those you'll find on Flickr.
One of the most compelling reasons to use Dropbox is its offline functionality. When you sign up, you can download the company's desktop client, which allows you to drag-and-drop files into it. Once complete, it syncs with your online account in the background while you work. It's an outstanding feature.
Dropbox also offers an attractive pricing model. Although it doesn't provide as many collaboration features as Box, it offers more capacity for free. In fact, you can upload up to 5GB for free. It costs $9.99 per month or $99 per year to have 53GB of storage.
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Online storage service Box.net is sporting a new look Thursday. It's part of a bigger change to woo small to medium-size businesses toward using it as the go-to way to transfer files between colleagues and clients. The changes will trickle down to users of its free, consumer-facing, 1 GB service too.
Instead of going for a desktop software solution, which I'm told is in the works, the company has redesigned its user experience to let employees and managers alike monitor usage and activity around files and folders. Collaborators on a project can see what others have open, the edits they've made, or changes to the file structure. All of these actions are then listed in each individual user's profile in a brand new information feed.
To go hand in hand with this, users can now leave threaded comments on any file. These can be left in project folders or accompany a file when it's moved elsewhere. Jen Grant, Box's VP of marketing, tells me this was done on purpose to give users control over conversations that might exist long after a certain file or project workspace is no longer necessary.
Box.net's new wide look sports user comments and activity feeds around each file.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Grant says that, along with the new look, one of the new things Box is trying to do is make it easier to control what users can do with files. For instance you can now very easily set ownership permissions on a single file, or a group of files based on who you're collaborating with. You're also now able to lock out a file from editing, which means your collaborators will be able to see it and open it for viewing, but will be unable to make any changes.
These features, along with the activity flow will be making their way to the service's iPhone application, and onto other platforms like the BlackBerry in the coming months. Grant says the team is hard at work trying to bring the mobile platform up to snuff with all the things you're able to do on the Web front-end.
One thing I think has yet to be addressed with this update, and what may be holding many businesses from relying on online file storage services is a way to continue that work flow when offline. Competing services like Dropbox let you upload, download and collaborate on files through a Web interface, but also mirror those files right on your local machine in a virtual folder.
As we've seen recently with the Quickbooks outage, and last February's Amazon S3 downtime, inaccessible data can bring things to a screeching halt. When applied to something as simple as a PowerPoint presentation or an ongoing project, people are going to want a hybrid solution that lets them get work done even if they're not able to get at their online files.
Until that happens, the company is expecting users to be happy enough downloading files for editing then re-uploading them when through. Either that, or working on them right inside the application with files that work with the company's OpenBox API.
Box.net has made two new interesting hires. The Web storage provider on Thursday announced the addition of Jen Grant as the new VP of marketing, and David Lee who will be taking up the reins as Box's director of Product Management.
Grant was formerly the head of Google's marketing team for Google Apps, while Lee was heading up work building advertising into several of Yahoo's video projects.
From a brief interview on the company's blog Lee says one of the things he hopes to improve is Box's business and collaboration features. Lee formerly worked on WebEx's MeetMeNow Web conferencing service as a UI designer, which could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. Last month company began a beta program with a handful of new features aimed at SMBs, filling in the gap between its consumer and enterprise offerings.
Access files on the go with Box.net's iPhone app.
(Credit: CNET Networks)If you're done playing around with Google Earth for the iPhone, you might be interested in checking out something with some everyday utility. Last week Box.net dropped its iPhone application on the App Store. Just like the mobile Safari-friendly version of yore, this lets you access your cloud-stored files on the go, including documents, music, and movies.
The big difference is that this new version takes advantage of your phone's hardware, letting you upload snapped photos and keep an eye on any updates.
In the future, once Apple flips the switch on its live notification service this means you'll be able to keep track of file changes as they happen, which makes Box.net's collaborative features all the more attractive. Currently, the only way to see updates is to hit a big refresh button, which will show you any additions or edits to existing files since you launched it.
One thing to note is that while the tool lets you see all the files in your cloud storage folders, items must be specifically formatted to play back on the device. I tried to play several Quicktime files (including MP4s, which are supported), and got error messages. This may seem like a no-brainer, but if you're trying to view something important that hasn't been formatted correctly, you're out of luck.
That said, if you do have a properly formatted file, it plays great--and in full quality, meaning you don't even need to use iTunes to sync up your content if you're near a high-speed connection.
Box.net's iPhone app is completely free and available on the App Store. Box.net's service offers 1GB for free, with two paid monthly plans that cost $8 and $20 and offer 5GB and 15GB of space, respectively.
[via Macrumors iPhone blog]
