Company offers 10GB of Net storage, for free
A company called Streamload is offering consumers a free 10 gigabyte online storage locker for multimedia files, potentially raising the stakes for larger companies such as Yahoo and America Online.
Streamload typically provides online storage space for a price, making it one of the few companies to survive in that business through the dot-com shakeout. However, it is increasingly competing with larger companies that offer online homes for digital photographs, and even the huge archive space provided by Google's Gmail service.
Company executives say the offer of big online storage lockers, once used only by advanced computer users, is now more relevant to a broader public that has large collections of digital photographs and MP3 files.
"It seems to have come to appeal not only to the hard-core early adopters, but to mainstream users," Streamload CEO Steve Iverson said. "It's no longer a novelty to have an MP3 player, and even having a place online to store MP3 files so you can fill up your iPod on the road has become more common."
Iverson's argument illustrates one side of a race between falling prices for data storage, such as computer hard drives, and the increasing ease of storing data on a network.
Some computer experts have argued that when all devices are connected to the Net, storing data locally will be unnecessary. Others note that cheap hard drives that are expanding to hold hundreds of gigabytes mean that it will be more efficient to store data locally whenever possible.
