Photo Backup Services

There are a number of new companies offering to provide online backup services for your photos (and in some cases other data). These include:

- Box.net
- Carbonite
- PhotoSafe from PhotoSite
- ProtectMyPhotos
- Streamload
- Swiss Picture Bank


I really like the idea of automated backup. I've been using an external hard disk with Retrospect and Picasa 2.0's Backup to DVD-R for my photos but when I was running the Carbonite Beta there was something very nice about knowing that all of my photos were sync'ed with the backup service.

My big issue with these services is that regardless of what they call themselves or where their data center is (Swiss Photo Bank.....), these companies are mostly all startups (PhotoSite has been around the longest and is part of United Online (UNTD) the same company that brings us Classmates.com and NetZero). It is true that storage costs have come down dramatically and new storage architectures make providing services like these much more practical, as some point these companies will need to make enough money to cover their costs once the VC money is spent. Though I have worked at both startups and big companies like Fidelity and Kodak, I want a brand like Kodak (or HP or Google or Yahoo) to be the keeper of my photo archive. I probably won't get invested in a service until it is available from a "trusted brand" at an affordable price.

This looks like an area that should be ripe for some acquisitions since several of these startups have built very nice technical solutions and all they need is a trusted brand to help them get people like me over the hump........