Bitcasa - Infinite Storage

Claiming to offer "infinite" storage of your files in a Dropbox like form is a bold claim but that's what Bitcasa is trying to push. The company is founded by former executives at companies like Verisign, Mastercard and Mozy.

Now they want to offer unlimited space to the masses for a proposed figure of $10 a month. That being the case, it seems like a great deal but as a user of "unlimited" offerings from others I am sceptical as to the definition of unlimited as the service prepares to go live. It is currently in alpha meaning its not ready for public use and anything outside of development purposes but give a good demonstration of the technology and how it will work.

User Interface

Bitcasa's menubar applictionWith services trying to sell "cloud" storage to the masses, the user interface (UI) is the single most important thing - a make or break moment. Most of the Bitcasa UI is mean tot be transparent like Dropbox's but it does have a few controls to allow you to actually add more folders. The idea is they have a folder manager that is accessible via an item in the menu bar or status bar. The folder user interface is laid out fairly well and intuitively and I am genuinely impressed with the UI for an alpha of a product. Its set out in a way that most people can intuitively use it without any real instructions. The installation process adds an extra item to the contextual menu (right click) allowing you to "Cloudify this...".

Functionality

Bitcasa's Folder ManagerBitcasa has tried to make the process as simple as possible to share a folder so all you have to do is go to their "My Bitcasa Folders" which will bring up a dialogue showing all your currently stored folders, their size and the current progress of files currently being sent to the cloud. The whole process to share a folder is really simple and I can see a lot of people getting to grips with it really easily once they've got the hang of what this cloud process actually does. Now unlike Dropbox, not all files are stored locally but rather a cache of frequently used files is saved locally. This is not the case in the pre-release just incase things go wrong but the idea on launch is it will delete the local copy version of the file or folder. It will just mount a special cloud folder with a saved copy (cache) of frequently used files so it wont have to constantly download a copy.

In testing this, it worked great with small folders up to around 500MB and they uploaded very quickly and no real change was noticed apart from the Bitcasa that was now showing on the folders icon. On closer inspection of the folders properties has it saying well over 500TB of available space so it was indeed "Cloudified"

Sharing of files is quite simple too. Simply right clicking on the file or folder to be shared and then clicking "Send this..." will make Bitcasa copy the file to their cloud platform and then proceed to give you a link which you can give to anyone. They person receiving doesn't have to have Bitcasa and folders are compressed as a zip file for download which is a nice touch.

Issues

Obviously this is an pre-release so most of these issues will be fixed but I still have issues with the connectivity of these services. At consumer internet speeds increase, the amount of bandwidth needed per client is increasing and I do believe this will severely affect upload speeds. Even in its current stat, I could not upload at more than 3Meg so my test of 500GB of video would take over 18 days to upload. The really disappointing thing was the tests were conducted on a line that is capable of over 200Meg upload. This may be a rate limiting system but unless your access to files is unrestricted, I believe the prosumer market is left out. 

Bitcasa uses data de-duplication of data on upload to ensure that they only store a could of instances of one file to enable low prices but consumer devices are progressively creating more and more data. I'm not sure how the exact algorithm functions but assuming my HD videos are only available on my hard drive, that's still a good 500GB of data that cannot be de-duped so I worry as to if this is available "on demand" how well it could be used.

Currently I have noticed it can be a bit unstable with mounting drives but I do believe

Conclusion

Over the coming years, I see individuals creating more and more data as consumer electronics become more advanced and this is a great way to store data that can no longer fit on your device. For consumers who already have large photo collections and video collections, it may be too much to upload all the data in one go over standard broadband connections but for those without this overhead, it is easy to see people using this on a day to day basis.

Knowing your Market

One of the biggest and most complicated issues I have found when talking to clients is understanding their userbase and target market. Some people have very distinct target demographics broken up into localised age ranges, genders and countries while other clients simply say "everyone". The problem here being, who is everyone?

Why you cant cater for 'everyone'

Sadly you cant cater to everyone and this is especially apparent on the web. You need to break down and try to say 90% of people will fit into this demographic and target those users. The problem here lies with who are your users and most people who say "well I don't know - its anyone who needs [this service]" will not be able to expand and serve their user base effectively.

This is not to say you need to have an exact idea or even a rough idea of who is using your site but it is something you need to monitor constantly. If needed, changing your site's design or content to better suit its users. Most people see a site as either finished or unfinished but its worth having a step back and looking at them as a service rather than a flyer on the web.

What needs to be stressed is a site is an evolutionary thing that should adapt to suit its users and better serve them in time. This is what popular sites do in order to get more popular. Its probably better to look on a site as if its a supermarket, you may or may not be selling things but the following example still applies.

If you look at supermarkets, they have a huge inventory and most orders are unique - everyone wants something different but you start to see trends developing with how people are shopping and then they adapt to the way people use them. Over time, things get moved around to make sure that things are not only in a logical order but they also push people down a certain path that allows the supermarkets to upsell things to you. Supermarkets try to cater for nearly every type of customer and even if they cannot find the exact thing they wanted, they will generally leave with something because 90% of the people will find exactly what they want and the other 10% will either fall in line, or just complain a lot.  With the full honesty - the complainers in that group will come up with most of the problems so catering for them is much more effort and will generally cost you more. 

So what does this have to do with my site?

Understanding your users is so important I cannot stress enough how you have to keep monitoring it. Make sure if you have an analytics package that you look at more than just "how many" visitors viewed your site and look into who they are. I dont mean stalk them but you can see trends appearing with how people use your site and if you have a lot of people from say France visiting your site, possibly consider adding a French translation of some of your content. If you run an online shop and you look into who your market is, you are actually able to increase revenue year on year.

Reacting quickly to these changes is paramount. You cannot sit back assuming that next year you will have the same visitors or if you've killed off your site altogether as it was not suiting the target audience.

Over the next couple of months, all our customers at Prompt will be recieving a free account on GoSquared which will enable them to better respond to their changing userbase. If you have yet to play around with GoSquared, I suggest you sign up for a free account.

The GoSquared Live Dashboard

On a slightly related note - its James Gill's birthday and him being one of the co-founders of GoSquared I thought I'd mention my favorite analytics company!

Computer Equipment

I spend most of my day working at the computer so my desktop is a pretty important bit of kit for me. It enables me to work fast and break things quicker.

I get quite a lot of people asking me "Oh, so what kind of machine do you use" and the first thing I must warn you - is that it is a Mac. Im sorry - it was hard for my parents too. This should explain why though.

So I think a kit rundown would be a great idea.

It is as follows

• 2x 2.66GHz Xeon Mac Pro
• 16GB RAM
• 2x 256GB Crucial C300 SSD's
• 6TB in general HDD
• 2x 24" Acer Monitors, 22" LG and 19" Dell
• Logitech DiNovo Edge
• Logitech Performance MX

So thats the tech stuff out of the way. You may notice a blue glow to the image which isn't photoshopped on, its my computer controlled lighting system powered by an Arduino Uno and a serial based USB application. There is also a Wacom Bamboo tablet for sketching, a 5.1 Creative sound system and of course and last a Guitar Hero controller.

Now I'm not going to go through explaining my buying decisions because frankly, most people wont care and if you do - you can drop me a note. All the kit I use I highly recommend with the exeption of the Mac Pro's graphics cards - the less said the better as Macs are well known for have old and rubbish hardware in the graphics department.

So here is an FAQ so that if you ask me, I can refer you to search my blog!

FAQ

Q1. Why do you need all this kit?

A. Its my job, a way to make a living. If you had to spend 8 hours a day behind a computer and had the ability to improve the experience, Im sure you would too!

Q2. What do you actually do on it?

A. I make websites. More specifically I develop web systems for businesses to manage all their orders, stock and clients.

Q3. Isn't programming mostly text files?

A. Yep, compiling takes a heap of processing power and when developing, I usually use local virtual machines to sandbox anything I'm working on to ensure everything can work in a fresh enviornment as well as an established one. It also helps when you are opening hundreds of tabs and files to have a heap of RAM available.

Q4. Why the Mac?

A. At the time of buying the computer - it was around 2009 and quad cores were only really strting to come out. I wanted a machine with 2 quad cores as it was going to be a long term investment and no motherboard manufacturer would make a dual i7 (similar to the Xeon's I have) motherboard so I settled with the Mac. The only other manufacturer around who was doing a similar machine was Alienware and as it was more expensive to get the Alienware, I settled with the blue pill. The other thing is the rediculous amount of RAM slots. It is expandable up to 96GB of RAM and for a desktop that is amazing (even by todays standards).

Q5. Why didn't you buy (INSERT NAME OF PRODUCT)?

A. Because it either wasnt around or if it was did not beat the price of my Mac and come with the correct amount of smug.

Q6. Why 4 monitors?

A. Gernally I have a few things I need to quickly flick between and it is quicker to look at another screen to be constantly flicking backwards and forwards. I recommend anyone using a computer on a daily basis for anything more than browsing the web should have two.

Q7. Well if 4 monitors are so much better, why not have more?

A. It would be overkill. When you have more than one monitor you find you notice that you have to keep track which screen things are on and this can slow you down if you can't multitask well. This get exponetially worse with the number of screens. My limit is 4 sadly. I can work at a pace with 4 faster than I can on 1. Not to say having another few screens around wouldn't hurt but I could not use them productively in my workflow. More just to monitor stuff like hits, clients, twitter, email, amusing cats - the usual.

Q8. Amsuing cats?

A. Yes. Cats with funny captions - infact its not just cats. Pretty much anything with a funny caption.

Q9. Do you get out much?

A. Sometimes. It depends how heavy the workload is and how difficult clients work is. Sometimes work needs nothing but focus in silence. Sometimes work needs creativity and working from a laptop in a forest, by a river or even up a mountain.

Q10. How much do you work?

A. Too long.

Q11. Where is this?

A. Im my bedroom in my flat. I do co-share an office over in Docklands with the lovely Fido but sadly with the Olympics on the horizon, Im not looking forward to working in London and will most likely be spending as little time as I can in the country. Not because I hate tourists. Its more I hate being able to taste them on the tube while I get to the office.

Q12. Why dont you drive?

A. You can't sleep and drive.

Q13. Yes you can.

A. No you cant.

Q14. How much did all the kit cost you?

A. I could look out all the receipts for all the upgrades and equipment but lets just say its probably quite a bit more than a cheap netbook from Comet. Or a small car.

Q15. Do you have any old hardware you'd like to sell/give to me?

A. I have a very long and intensive decomissioning system that takes years to go through. Things when out of my "main workflow" get moved to the "old" pile where a possible use is worked out. If not value to me is found, it is passed onto close friends or relatives. If it cannot find a home with them because everyone in my family has at least 5 computers or friends have no way to get it home, I find a less useful use for it like a paperweight or a seat (computers are very cheap seats that have built in seat warmers if you run folding at home). After this - some are torn to shreds to meet their new purpose. The ones that do survive intact and have no value to me, I give away. Drop me a message in the contact form if you are looking for... well anything and I'll see what I've got lying around.

Q16. I dont suppose you have RAM for a 1999 Dell?

A. Yes. Yes I do.

Q17. When will you be buying a new desktop seeing as you've spent loads of money on it?

A. When it breaks or gets too slow that it annoys me.

Q18. Can I see more pictures?

A. Yes, you can see them all on my images page.

Q19. Is that is?

A. Yes.

QR Codes in real life

QR codes have been likened to "the next big thing" by a large percentage of internet marketing types and in theory, its a fantastic idea for certain things like transferring contact information and quick transfer of data. The problem is, too many people are getting the wrong idea and being told "stick a QR code on it anyway" just because it may help their business or site out.

Too often do I see posters on the tube with QR codes on them. Now good idea in theory, you need large volumes of people to act upon your ad and making sure people have www.yoururlistoolongtoremembersowemadeaqrcodeforit.com easily accessable. The main issue with a vast majority of these ads is that they are all website URL's and on the tube, you are in an environment with no external access to the internet reducing the effectiveness.

So here are the issues on the table:

1. QR codes are being used to substitute good marketing tactics

 I have personally had experience with overhearing some internet merketing firms talking about QR codes and how they are an amazing tool for peoples businesses. To a degree, they are correct in the way it can help businesses but a lot of the hype around the use of them is just that, hype. I am unclear as to why people are being told about "just stick a QR code on it", which according to some people will change the way people interact with your business. Shifting focus from things like QR codes to good design, clear copy and a targeted audience will improve customer response.

2.Too much information is piled into QR codes

 People try to get away with using QR to get their long website name to be easy to type in. It is a good use for a QR code but a simpler and more effective thing to do would be to get a shorter, more memorable domain that people can remember. When you want that client to re-visit the site and they dont have your QR code handy, you have actually created an issue. The more information you throw into a QR code, the smaller the "blocks" of data and the harder it is for your QR apps to read. You do not want to get to the stage where your QR codes need a smart phone with a macro lens to read them correctly

3. Most ads using QR codes aren't targeting their users

This one is more of a misunderstanding between how a technology should be used and how it is actually used. The target market for QR codes is anyone with a smartphone? Simply, no. On most smartphones, you will need some form of QR reading app which means you have to be bothered to download it. At this stage you will lose most people. Its genrally considered "too much effort" to download an app just to read something once. Remember peoples attension span with technology can be likened to a child who has been given a math problem involving sweets, quick to then realise the whole situation was merely hypothetical. If you do get users past this point, this is for two reasons.

1. You have got information/offers/discounts strongly desirable to the individual 
2. They work in "social media/marketing"

Obviously if the reason is the former and it is because "its an easier way to remember our URL" - change your URL so people can easily remember it, possibly even pass it on - who knows where it could lead.

The target market of some of the uses of QR codes boggles my mind how they expect their target market to understand what these are and how to use them intuatively. You should not have to have a little small print under a QR code explaining what it is/how to use it. See my example below for further explanation.

4. QR codes are slow to process

If the person using QR codes does infact already have a reader (+5 geek points) then half the battle is done but even still - to read the average URL should take a maximum of 5 seconds if you are comparing it to simply having a memorable address. Think about the time it takes to read a QR code. 

1. Smartphone/tablet out of pocket/bag
2. Unlock device
3. Find app
4. Launch app
5. Scan (including focussing if required)

Now I'm not in the world olympics for fast device usage but I'd like to think I'm pretty quick at finding the app and scanning it but this will still take me at least 20 seconds if not more to get it scanned.

Examples

Now that said there are some good uses for QR codes and that brings me lovingly to my examples

Good example

Lets say you have an advert for a technology conference and to get people to sign up, you were offering 10% off the ticket price. You had a mobile site to anyone that went through your advert to make sure it was easy to use but you still wish people went to your main site. You still mention your main URL but for those wanting to get the inpulse buy now, you could get their business and still keep awareness for their main URL.

A QR code would be great! It has a benefit to the end customer as it is a one time visit to book tickets, you can track who is using it, it is a customised experience just for smartphones and its a convenient way instead messing with coupon codes on the site to offer the discount.

Bad example

A healthcare website for over 50's women wants people to visit their website to find out more about their product range and benefits. On their ad, they have their logo, a few pictures with brand names and a QR code. They have a short URL for their site on the ad but for some reason the QR code is quite long (possibly adding a whole load of tracking info to the url because the user never has to type it in).

This is a less than ideal use for QR codes. The target market for the products will most likely not own a smartphone and will not know what a QR code is. There is also no need to a QR code to quickly get to the URL as it is already short. This is based upon a real advert I have seen on the tube.

Experiment

I am trying to find out the following.

Will people in a technology field attempt to read my QR codes if I walk around with them on my bag, stuck to my devices and genrally getting it in pictures wherever I can. QR bombing if you will.

Simple enough goal but I have a sneaking suspicion that I will receive very few hits.

I will be running this for around 6 months or so to see how it goes. I work in a tech centred field with a lot of web startups so no explanation should be needed on how to use them and I would say most people in the field will have a QR code reader app so the question is how many people follow it through.

According to certain people, just the sheer act of sticking a QR code on my bag will most liekly double the effectiveness of my advert.

The advert simply reads "You should follow @ne0" with a big QR code underneath life the one pictured on my backpack below.

Expectations

In a 6 month period, I'm expecting at least 30 scans of the QR code and of those, I expect at least 50% of them to bouce as appose to the rest who will go to the twitter page.

Summary

QR codes are great if used properly but without a proper focus I belive they are pretty much useless and hype driven.

I am willing to be proven wrong but according to common sense and the lack of actual evidence to support claims about QR codes, they are just another gimmick.

For Science

First experiment is a little bit of fun.

Situation

This all revolves around the idea of making a statement that is outrageous socially (unacceptable, weird or otherwise) where a normal person would say no. You then after ask the same person:

"but what is I told you it was for science?"

If the outcome remains the same, then the outcome is down to one of three reasons.

1. The person you are talking to does not care about science
2. Your proposed hypothesis was so outrageous that science does not deserve to have an answer
3. Your question was stupid and now you appear to be an idiot and/or a creep

If the outcome changes, it could mean one of two things.

1. Your proposition is considered reasonable by the other party for further exploration for science
2. It was a reasonable request without science

Testing

An easy way to test this is go up to a person you know fairly well and ask them would they lick your face. Then ask them if they would for science. Please bear in mind if they answered yes straight away, as a socially unacceptable thing to do, there is probably something wrong with this person or they are into you. Either way, science cannot help you with this conundrum so you are on your own.