Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

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But how will the product evolve with that talent?

The sync/sharing/storage aspect of the product is mature given the relative one-dimensionality of file storage.

Storage, Syncing and sharing should be transparent to the users - so clearly, they need to ensure a continued robust, secure service - but one that never gets between a user and their data.

The acquisition of Mailbox is a great move assuming they bolt Mailbox on-top of Dropbox.

What I would like to see is API integrations across services such that I can eventually store all MY data in MY account and allow other services access to it.

This could cause an issue for some services - but the fact is that I don't want to host all my mail with gmail, all my pics in FB, etc...

I want a storage glob and a set structure for "pics go here" "docs go here" "mail goes here" and a range of apps that access the data in an authorized, yet ad-hoc manner - but at the end of the day, the data is MINE.

You bring up a good point, which is what I keep wondering too - where do they go? Dropbox already has sync APIs [0] across both iOS and Android (and presumably desktop), which must be their big bet to get to the central cloud store that you mention.

The part that is lacking is the metadata layer for pics/audio etc which allows apps to read others files, but that could be an easy layer on top of this API.

[0] https://www.dropbox.com/developers/sync

I'd like this too and might start work on something over the summer. When you say 'my' data I'm assuming you mean 'remains under my control'.

Some of the ideas have been research topics and may ripe for demos later in the year. If you've got s moment, you can check out perscon.net for an overview.

This is exactly what I was talking about. There are a ton of challenges - and obviously this is against what the market/industry is looking to provide (they want to control the service, and see your data as a part of their service)

But we need to move in this direction and have some balance between the user owning their online experience, especially when that experience is an actual extension of who they are - and services that are able to provide portions of that experience in a way where they can be profitable and viable businesses.

Now that they've brought in this talent, it's just a matter of time before all those brains start working together--and once this happens, you'll see the product naturally evolve. I don't have any specific ideas as to what it will involve into, though.

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