

Dropbox Acquires Snapjoy (YC S11) And Puts Photos Into Its Focus - relation
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/19/dropbox-acquires-snapjoy-and-puts-photos-into-its-focus/

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hospadam
I'm really happy for the Snapjoy team - I love their product! But to be
honest, I'm a little bummed. I thought that since this service was making
money through subscriptions, they would be around for a while. I spent a lot
if time and effort moving my entire photo library to their cloud.

I know they haven't given any details about the future of the product, but I
imagine they will move the team to DropBox products. As someone who was hoping
for a long term improving product, that's a little depressing.

I guess the lesson is that even startups that you pay for aren't immune to
being sold. What services are safe to invest time and money in using?

~~~
OmarIsmail
Even big "safe" companies like Microsoft and Google discontinue services. It's
probably better to accept the fact that services come and go as the price of
progress and figure out how to live in such a world.

This is actually one of the ironic casualties of the cloud. In the old days
you bought your packaged software and it was pretty much guaranteed to work as
long as you didn't change your setup (OS, hardware, etc). With cloud services
the change is out of your control, so there's nothing you can do to freeze
your setup.

This is probably a reason why there may be a growing market for personal
clouds.

~~~
bentcorner
I've looked a little at ownCloud - I'd be interested in hearing about what
other people have tried and found to be functional.

~~~
jmathai
Have a look at OpenPhoto. We've got a pull request for ownCloud support.

<http://theopenphotoproject.org> or <https://openphoto.me> or
<https://github.com/photo>

Disclaimer, I'm the lead dev

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lancewiggs
I let out another sigh of despair when I heard this. It feels like Dropbox is
moving further away from my use-case and into media wonderland.

I use Dropbox as a serious tool for synching and sharing files between my own
computers, and with quite a number of other people and companies to do the
same. My Dropbox work files are over 50gb. I'm willing to pay for this, and of
course do so.

My photos these days do come from multiple sources. However with 11 years of
digital pictures, 20+ mb per picture from the latest camera (and thousands of
shots) and with a new Go Pro Hero HD in the house, the amount of data storge
required dwarfs the capability of Dropbox and my capped Internet connection.
The 500gb plan, meanwhile, is $500 per year. That's a lot of money but also
insufficient space for photos. I also don't really want to share that many of
them, and if I do, then they go straight to the sharing site de jour.

So I see Dropbox as a professional tool for work files, but an overpriced
amateur tool for pictures. The app and website seem to keep pushing me to turn
on photos, and I wish they would stop.

But yes, Snapjoy does look nice, and if priced correctly could be a tool of
choice. Just play nice with iPhoto, Lightroom and Aperture.

~~~
lubos
with specialized services on the Internet for just about any kind of data, it
makes less sense to use general purpose tool like Dropbox.

Not to mention that cloud storage is becoming core feature of many operating
systems. If Dropbox doesn't reinvent itself, it could easily face the fate of
Netscape.

So what I'm thinking is that Dropbox will keep building/buying these specific-
purpose services which will all work on top of your dropbox account (similar
how Facebook built photo-sharing and other features on top of their social
network). This is basically the only way for them to stay relevant since pure
cloud storage is at this point commoditized and there is zero lock-in.

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cschmidt
I've been looking for a service like Snapjoy. Kind of sad that I found it in a
post that the service is suspended. Hopefully the team will keep working on a
Snapjoy like service within Dropbox.

~~~
cwh
you should check out Picturelife - <http://picturelife.com>

disclosure: I am the CTO.

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redthrowaway
Given that both are YC companies, I'm curious what input YC had on the
decision. Did they arrive at it independently after have met each other
through the YC network, did pg suggest the acquisition, or what?

I only ask to slake my mild curiosity at how these sorts of deals typically
transpire when the two companies have shared investors.

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blhack
While we're talking about photos:

How long is it going to be before iOS or Android (points to the winner!)
partners with CVS or Walgreens to offer printing services for photos as an
integrated part of the OS?

Having cameras in everybody's pocket all the time (decent ones, too!) is a
revolution. The next step is making it easy to put those photos on the fridge.

I really love the reality of physical places having APIs. Think of Walgreens
like a peripheral and use it.

I would spend huge amounts of money of photos if this was a simple thing. (And
part of the OS. I don't want to open walgreens' undoubtedly god awful app to
do this.)

~~~
PStamatiou
We do this too <http://picplum.com>

~~~
isaacwaller
Do you guys plan to make an Android app? It would be really cool to order a
print right from the camera app with the "Share" button.

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blackysky
great it's Instagram with a business model... Smart move from Dropbox and
Snapjoy ... I guess Dropbox is going to be your main smart and easy to use
hard drive in the cloud... That's a serious business if they are able to pull
that off..

~~~
joering2
ugm, that "serious" business (I don't think they make money as of today)
competes with Google.. you know, THE google, that gives you 5GB free, instead
of D-B 2.

I say they have serious _competition_. But serious business -- not so much.

~~~
djt
They made 240 million last year in revenue. Not sure about what their burn
rate is but they seem to be on the up and getting integrated into a lot of
applications which improves their tie ins.

Google gives away their storage but it is nowhere near the level of ease as
Dropbox for non-technical people IMHO.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropbox_(service)>

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sgdesign
If you're looking for a service similar to Snapjoy, you could give Sharypic a
try: <http://sharypic.com>

It's based around events, but you can use its galleries for anything. As an
added bonus, it can also aggregate photos from twitter if you give it a
hashtag.

Disclaimer: I did the app's design.

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jackalpha
I'm so happy for JP!

I remember chatting with him back when we were both in junior high and he was
talking about applying to incubators and doing startups - it's great to see
what he's doing now!

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PStamatiou
Congrats Michael and JP!

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TommyDANGerous
Congrats SnapJob. Huge move.

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minm
Use personal cloud like Tonido (<http://www.tonido.com>). With public cloud
services, once data leaves your device there is no guarantee. Good thing is
there are options.

