Dropbox Sets Google and Facebook in Its Sights With a Slew of New Apps by Marcus Wohlsen

Images: Courtesy of Dropbox

Dropbox is going head-to-head with some of the largest companies on the net.

This morning, the San Francisco startup unveiled several additions to its flagship file-sharing service as well as some entirely new services, directly challenging outfits like Google and Facebook and underlining its ambition to become Silicon Valley’s next big company.

For the average internet user, the biggest news is the arrival of a new photo-storing and sharing app, dubbed Carousel. The app is available for iOS and Android, and the team that built it was led by Gentry Underwood, who previously oversaw the elegantly designed Mailbox email app acquired by Dropbox last year. Carousel takes photos stored in Dropbox and organizes them into galleries according to when and where they were taken, and it includes sharing tools that closely resemble the way you send photos via SMS text messaging on your smartphone.

The San Francisco startup unveiled several additions to its flagship file-sharing service as well as some entirely new services, directly challenging outfits like Google and Facebook.

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston said the app is part of a larger effort to create all sorts of new apps for your daily life. He calls this the company’s “home for life” strategy, an approach that puts Dropbox squarely in Facebook’s competitive space — something that was underscored by a product-launch video that resembled nothing so much as the video Facebook put out when it launched its new Timeline photo interface in 2011.

“We’re moving from one app called Dropbox to this whole family of apps, this whole set of services designed to work better together,” Houston said.

In keeping with that theme, Houston said that Dropbox for Business — which lets a corporate IT department control a separate file-sharing folder attached to your main Dropbox account — has emerged from its limited release period and is now available to all businesses. And the company has beefed up its primary service in other ways. The coolest new tool is a real-time collaboration widget that lets users know when two of more people are using the same file. Currently available for Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and Excel, this tool adds an icon to the edge of these apps when someone else opens a file. If you then click on this icon, you can open up a chat window, which also includes an “update” link to sync up changes with everyone else who’s currently in the file.

As an engineering feat, real-time file-syncing is one of the tougher problems in the world of online consumer software. And it’s an extremely competitive space, with Google Docs and Microsoft as well as startups like Box.com battling it out for a place on your machine.

The company also announced the long-awaited release of Mailbox for Android. And for iOS users who have already come to depend on Mailbox’s sweet swipe tool — a kind of snooze button for your email messages — you can now do the same thing on your PC with the limited beta release of the new Mailbox for Desktop.

By expanding beyond its original mission of backing up and syncing files and going up against bigger, more entrenched competitors like Google and Facebook, Dropbox is taking a big risk. But its approach reflects a savvy understanding of how those companies managed to grow into the giants of the net. As Dropbox expands its family of services, it locks consumers into ever-greater dependency. Storing files is one thing, but adding email, photos, and collaboration creates a “home” that’s hard to leave once you go inside.

Source: http://www.wired.com/2014/04/dropbox-google-facebook/?mbid=social_fb

Facebook Goes Big With Right-Hand Rail Ad Redesign

Facebook’s right-hand rail is getting a rare ad redesign with photos that are twice as large, the social network announced today. The right-hand rail on desktop has been mostly overlooked as secondary real estate on Facebook—the side of the highway compared to the mobile News Feed's Times Square.

Ad rates reflect the demand, according to analysts. The rail costs about 20 cents every thousand impressions, and the mobile News Feed costs $5.72, according to new data from Facebook marketing platform Nanigans.

Mobile feed space also is more expensive than desktop feed, which costs about $5.25 for every 1,000 impressions.

Now, with an image makeover—a more engaging look that more closely resembles sponsored News Feed posts—right-hand rail prices could rise. 

Facebook said that the new rail format was up to three times more effective in early tests. Also, there will be less room and fewer ads, which could increase the competition among advertisers looking to market there.

“In the coming months, we'll be rolling out an updated design for ads in the right-hand column,” Facebook said in a blog post today. “This updated look will make right-hand column ads more visually consistent with the ads you see in News Feed.

“They will use the same proportions as desktop News Feed ads, they will be larger in size, and there will be fewer of them. For advertisers, this means a simpler way to create ads and an enhanced visual creative canvas on the right-hand column of Facebook.”

Facebook emphasized that the proportions of the images are similar to News Feed photos, so advertisers only need to upload one file that works across both places.

The right-hand rail changes come as brands adjust their Facebook marketing strategies following changes to the platform that reduced their ability to reach audiences with unpaid posts. With lower organic reach on the pages, brands are paying to make up for diminished reach.

Facebook ad prices were up 10 percent across the board in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter, according to Nanigans.

Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-goes-big-right-hand-rail-ad-redesign-156897

Google Plus Adds View Count to Profiles and Pages

While people and pages have always shown how many other people have circled them, Google has now added the ability to see how many times your profile or page has been Viewed.

+Kenneth Manesse Sr. pointed out that now, on your profile page next to your follower count, there's a new metric called Views. The metric is there for both personal profiles and business Pages.

Perhaps more importantly, for Google+ Pages, the +1 count has been replaced with their follower count. It would appear that Google has removed the option to +1 a Page and now users can only circle Pages, just as they would other users.

The metric is not displayed on hovercards, nor does it appear on embedded profile or Page widgets.

If you want to limit who can see the View Count, simply go to your profile or Page settings and scroll down. There is an option to hide the metric from others, but it is on by default.

Interestingly, the setting indicates that it's "your profile and content." Hopefully this is an indication that more metrics will be coming for actual posts, as this is an area where Google+ has lagged painfully behind Facebook. Facebook Page owners have long had a rich set of metrics available to them (Facebook Insights) showing how well each specific post has been received, while Google has been content to allow third-party providers like CircleCount or Steady Demand to fill that gap.

Another possibility is that the metric includes views for both your profile and the content that you've posted, meaning that an update you shared to the stream and received views added to the tally. There is no official word yet from Google as to what the metric includes, or if more is on the way.

UPDATE: According to Google Help, "Views" tell you "how many times your content has been seen by other people, including your Photos, Posts, and the page [or profile] itself." So this confirms that the View Count is an aggregate number that includes every time your posts have been seen throughout their lifespan.

Like any metric, the new Google+ View Count is interesting but also needs to be applied in a certain way to be most effective. While it may be fun to compare View Counts with others, just like you might followers or +1's, it's best used an indicator of quality. If your Page has been viewed 1000 times but has only received 25 +1's, that may indicate that you're doing a good job of getting attention, but not providing enough value in your content.

What do you think?How many views has your profile or Page gotten, and do you like the new metric?

Source: http://www.thesocialmediahat.com/news/google-plus-adds-view-count-profiles-and-pages-03312014