Online Storage Box
Looking in boxes is a really good way of storing things that you want to use again later. They’re also a good place to look if you need something you don’t already have. Cats are the most obvious example because they are always in boxes, but it got me thinking…
I’ve been watching my friends struggling to locate appropriately sized and formatted logos, pictures, advertisements etc for years. It makes me think that a really handy and totally plausible open business design would be to create an online box that stores logos, letter heads, promotional images etc in lots of different formats with high and low resolution options so that idiots like me can go to the site, find the one we need and actually use them. People who already have the images can put them in the box and find them again later, but simultaneously they make it possible for other people to find the images they need.
If people want to use the space to store their company logo it would be released for free access by anyone on a Creative Commons licence. People who choose a free account could plausibly be attacked by ads by magazines, newspapers and websites offering advertising space, or advertising agencies etc to help pay for the cost of running the site.
Like in Flickr a paid account could not only provide more privacy from advertising but also could have more storage space, increased privacy of specific parts of stored content and increased access to assistant staff… Okay so why not use Flickr…
1) Files could be stored under a number of different formats so that designers or people who are writing about the company could easily lift images out in the required format.
2) It would give companies an opportunity to store letterhead, logo and business card templates, providing a backup copy in case of emergencies etc so that a business wouldn’t have to pay in-house designers to re-create the design before printing
3) Media would have easy access to a logo for any articles or features on a company.
4) Designers who have repeat work with several different clients could create an account to store required images.
The company would be so cheap to run with almost zero maintenance and I know so many people who would use it.
One Response to “Online Storage Box”
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I think the distinction between “free” and “paid for” is absolutely crucial when it comes to figuring out the defining characteristics of an OpenBusiness. If its just philantrophy, or hobby of somebody to provide whatever via the web it might be a great site, and sometimes hobbies turn out to become professions, but generally something that produces no money at all is not a business. The question is where to draw the line, how open do you need to be to be open? Look at Google, when it started it had no business model, it just attracted attention and then added revenue bringing services on top of it. In many ways this not such a new insight into human behavior: give something away for free and they will storm the market and buy more than ever before. Give away nothing, nobody will come. Yet, the big question remains: where is the border in between open and closed, and do these models not lead to and promote huge international near monopolies? Who can compete against Flickr now in the global Photosharing market? btw: I think its an idea worth trying. Wanna do it?