AllThingsD » SlideRocket

Meet Google Drive: Specs and Screenshots

Liz Gannes — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:30:43 +0000

Google Drive launches today as a revamped version of Google Docs, with greatly improved storage and accompanying software. Google has had a serious case of amateur hour while trying to keep this product a secret, but now people can stop speculating and start seeing if this is something they want to use.

Google Drive will start being available to some users today, and it will roll out globally “over the next several weeks,” said a spokeswoman.

Walt Mossberg has a thorough review, and I also have an interview with Chrome and Apps SVP Sundar Pichai and Google Drive product manager Scott Johnston that I’ll publish soon. But for the sake of setting them out clearly, here are some of the basic Google Drive specs:

Each Google Drive includes 5 gigabytes of free storage. Docs created with Google don’t count against that limit.
Users can pay for up to 16 terabytes of storage — 25GB for $2.49 per month, 100GB for $4.99, 1TB for $49.99, 16TB for $799.99 — with many levels in between. Drive will also be included for enterprise Google Apps users as part of their pricing structure.
Drive is available for Web, Mac, PC and Android phones and tablets. The team showed me a working version on an iPad, and said iOS would be available very soon.
Drive is the new Docs. For users who have Drive on their accounts, docs.google.com will start redirecting to drive.google.com. All of users’ Google Docs are automatically imported into their Drives.
In addition to creating regular Google Docs files, users can install apps through the Chrome Web Store. The 18 launch partners include HelloFax (faxes), Balsamiq (mock-ups), Lucidchart (diagrams), DocuSign (signatures), SlideRocket (presentations) and MindMeister (mind maps).
There are lots of ways to sort and view files, including an activity stream of all the most recently modified documents that you have access to, and a grid view that shows thumbnails.
Users can also search across all their files, with image recognition and optical character recognition automatically applied to new pictures and scanned documents so they can be more easily searched even if they don’t have much metadata.
When users click to add a photo in Google+, they’ll now have the option of taking it directly from their personal Google Drives. Google Drive will also be available for attachments in Gmail, but not at launch.
There are chat conversations associated with every file, where users get notified whenever someone leaves a new comment.

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Almost Famous: Sprout's Matthew McNeely

Drake Martinet — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:17:16 +0000

A feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

This week: A virtual visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Matthew McNeely and Sprout, the build-it-yourself Flash tool that lets anyone create customized Web site widgets.

Who: Matthew McNeely

What: VP of Engineering, Sprout.

Why: Sprout is a Web-based, WYSIWYG Flash editor that allows individuals and businesses to build customized content that can be embedded on their own sites. Sprout’s creations (known as “sprouts”) are also frequently incorporated into social media campaigns.

Where: Sproutinc.com (corporate bio); San Francisco, although Matthew says the team is “truly distributed,” as he lives in New Hampshire (analog); Facebook Fan Page (Yes, you can write on its wall); @Sprout (Twitter).

Who else: Slide; SlideRocket. But, “not too many that focus on branding the way we do.”

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job: I grew up in Indiana, and, in the summers, I would de-tassel corn.

Has a Geek Crush on: I’m gonna get letters from all my Apple (AAPL) friends for saying this: Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT).

Gadget of the Moment: I finally got an iPhone, but I got it for $50, refurb.

Tech Wish: I wish I could build a sprout for my iPhone, but that means it would need to run Flash.

Fails at: I’m not a very good communicator, and every once in a while I catch myself closing up and not communicating with the [Sprout] team the way I need to.

Bio in 140 Characters

Shares a hometown w/James Dean. Picked corn until he got his first computer. Was a software engineer/consultant before moving to Sprout.

The Five Questions

What does Sprout bring to the table that others don’t?

At the most basic level, it’s about the speed. Before Sprout, you really needed to understand Flash and the sort of movie metaphor that it puts out in order to use it. Now, it’s much faster. If you know PowerPoint, you can use our product.

We also have a big push in the social networking space. That’s unique to us. If you are looking to put out a really rich media campaign on a social network, there’s no better service. You can also change things on the fly. Someone in the ad department can say, “Hey, this ad isn’t working.” And you can change it in five minutes, and it’s back up.

Who isn’t using Sprout, but should?

I can think of two examples. One would be, say, a yoga instructor who was also tech savvy. She could build up a quick shell of a Web presence with Sprout and sell it to other yogis who just want to give classes, but still have a nice, clean, updated Web site.

The second thing would be a porn sprout. That’s one industry that could really benefit from our technology, but just hasn’t yet. I mean, imagine, video clips and little libraries. We’ve seen some slightly suggestive things come across the bow, but no one has really gone all the way yet. I really hope you print that.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: A Sprout spokesman wanted to make sure readers knew that McNeely was kidding here, of course. Sprout's terms of service forbid such a use of its technology.]

Is there a formula for an attention-grabbing Sprout widget?

It’s different in every industry. Overall, a little animation and really good-looking graphics help. But, when it comes to engagement, we do have some idea.

It has to be contextually relevant [in the social media space], your friends should be fans of this Facebook page [for it to become popular], stuff like that. I mean, with good design, you can get someone like this guy from Des Moines who has basically cornered the market on real estate widgets.

Who should buy Sprout?

You mean besides Google? Seriously, though, we do work with Google (GOOG) quite a bit, and I’d love to see us become the small- to medium-size business ad-building tool for them.

Most real geeks have memories where they saw something new and said to themselves, “Dang, I love living in the future.” What’s yours?

My brother and I got this old North Star computer at this garage sale or something, and I programmed through the night to get this thing to predict, you know, randomize lottery numbers. I never won anything, of course, but I was just so enamored by it.

That kinda got me hooked into the notion that you can work on something and lose yourself in it.

The In Living Color Interview

[ See post to watch video ]

Meet the VC: Hummer Winblad's Mitchell Kertzman

Kara Swisher — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:49:56 +0000

We have been remiss in posting our meet-the-VCs-of-Silicon-Valley-if-you-dare video feature, what with all the Yahoo goings-on to keep track of. But we are back with another riveting episode, with guest star Mitchell Kertzman of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

A longtime tech exec, Kertzman is one of the funniest players in the tech sector, and was once the font for all the best jokes about Microsoft, back in the day when no one made jokes about Microsoft for fear of digital defenestration.

Today, Kertzman is actually much more serious, focused on the business-to-business part of the Web 2.0 world, rather than the more popular consumer-facing areas into which most VCs have been pumping oodles of money.

While Kertzman was early into the widget trend–in fact, he was the first to say the word to me at a Demo conference where he was showing off the Widgetbox, the widget directory startup, a moment for which I shall never forgive him–his new focus is on companies like SlideRocket, the online presentation application, and other Web-based productivity products like it.

Yes, I swear, SaaS–Software as Service–can be interesting! Really!

We also liven things up with some chatting about too-high valuations and thoughts on the Microsoft-Yahoo takeover battle, as well as the recession.

Here’s the video of Kertzman:

[ See post to watch video ]

Kara Visits Under the Radar!

Kara Swisher — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:43:55 +0000

Yesterday, I was a judge on a three-person panel at the Under the Radar: The Business of Web Apps conference, held at Microsoft’s (MSFT) Mountain View, Calif., campus in Silicon Valley.

The event, sponsored by Dealmaker Media, was a very good version of many such conferences held often around the region, where start-ups come to show themselves off in what amounts to a geek version of “American Idol.” There were just over 30 companies there yesterday.

In other words, entrepreneurs come to make a PowerPoint pitch before the panel and the audience and then we get to ask questions and make comments, a la Simon Cowell.

(I tried to channel Paula Abdul, but 10:45 a.m. is much too early to start drinking–um, it’s just Diet Coke!–for me!)

The companies I judged–with Stephen Stribley of Microsoft Office-Live and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners’ Prashant Shah–were in a category called “Manage Up.”

That meant they were all essentially in the enterprise-software-as-a-service arena that has gotten–and will get–increasingly hot.

The group I judged included: Act-On Software (an on-demand Internet communication and collaboration service), Magento (an open-source e-commerce), Mumboe (an online document-management service), and NetBooks (a Web-based business-management system).

All were interesting and promising, although all had issues, from security to marketing challenges to, of course, bigger competitors.

I did a video of snippets of the presentations of all four in a row, starting with Act-On, as well as a little interview with one of my favorite VCs–but only because he is funny–Mitch Kertzman of Hummer Winblad. He was there to support several of his investments, including SlideRocket (an Internet presentation application).

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]