Cliff Shaw, founder of ProtectMyPhotos and DocSyncer, is having an up and down week. First the bad news. ProtectMyPhotos, which launched in October 2006, is done. They spent $280,000 in seed capital to try to make the idea work, but ultimately they couldn’t compete new backup services like Mozy and Carbonite. Mozy was recently acquired by EMC for $76 million, and Carbonite has raised $21 million in capital. We’re therefore putting ProtectMyPhotos into the TechCrunch DeadPool. But Shaw also writes to tell us that his second startup, DocSyncer, is going gangbusters. The product auto-syncs word documents on your hard drive with Google Docs. In the last five days, he says, users have auto-uploaded more than 200,000 new documents to Google Docs via the product, making DocSyncer by far the largest single contributor to Google Docs. The product appears to have legs. There’s still no guarantee that DocSyncer will make it as a business, but users like the product. That’s a good start, and now Shaw can focus all of his energy on making it work. CrunchBase Information DocSyncer Mozy Carbonite Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
ProtectMyPhotos is a newly launched service that aims to make the online/offline photo storage and viewing environments seamless. This Windows desktop client automatically syncs folders on your computer with your online storage space and Flickr account, reflecting changes on the desktop online in near real time. Online consumer media storage is a relatively crowded market (probably not one I would get into) but ProtectMyPhotos is a solid addition to the field. As consumer demand for this type of service continues to grow rapidly, there will likely be room for lots of players in this vertical – unless the big guys come in and completely dominate the field. Whether and when that might happen is anyone’s guess. ProtectMyPhotos is a privately funded Boulder, Colorado company led by Cliff Shaw, the man behind Pearl Street Software, makers of Family Tree Legends. Shaw said that his work in the genealogy space demonstrated that easy online photo storage is what’s in the largest demand by consumers. ProtectMyPhotos has an experienced team strong in building retail partnerships. That’s going to be very important as there is no shortage of competitors in online photo storage. ProtectMyPhotos scores high in ease of use. The client displays online storage in a way that looks just like the desktop, complete with hierarchical folders and typical metadata. It can autodiscover particular folders on your computer that contain media files or can be directed to sync with particular folders on the desktop. Photos can be taken offline and edited, changes will automatically be made online and all previous versions are stored. The company seeks to offer the easiest program for mainstream users to adopt. They’ve done a good job of it. Multiple users can be given permission to access accounts and photos and changes can be synced automatically with Flickr accounts. ProtectMyPhotos is currently working on an API that it will provide to other services seeking to automatically sync desktop and online files. They believe this will be key in furthering mainstream adoption of web services and I think they are right. Whether it’s Google Office, Zoho or the company that stole the show at Office 2.0, Joyent, the prospect of ProtectMyPhotos sharing with others the capability to sync files online and off is an interesting one. The file backup service costs $40 per year for 40 GB per year with additional space available at the same price. That space can → Read More
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