6 ms·

Pixelapse is joining Dropbox

118 points by artsandsci 12y ago

MAGZine 12y ago
Our Incredible Journey claims another. Interesting though, Dropbox appears to be on a buying spree. They just claimed Cloudon last week, now this.
- martythemaniak 12y ago
  What exactly is your problem? That they didn't publicly flagellate themselves to your liking? That they "sold out"? That they build something valuable, but the next Google? Or you just get kicks out of being a snarky ass?
  - elsurudo 12y ago
    http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com
  - Argorak 12y ago
    Because it's often of no interest for the customer. At all. It's like a star at the Oscars saying thanks to all the fans that supported them, except that there is no film, no Oscar and no fans. From a customers perspective, it's probably for the worst, even.
    - Kiro 12y ago
      > Because it's often of no interest for the customer. At all. So what? Why must every single word be about the customer? I find "our incredible journey" posts inspirational and as long as they are clear what will happen with the service and what it means for the customers I don't see what the problem is.
      - Argorak 12y ago
        Because they are addressed to the customer and for most of them, the aren't inspirational, because they are not entrepreneurs. For what happens to the service, 2 paragraphs in my inbox is quite enough.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    Did the comment you're replying to change? I don't see any complaints or snark. There is a touch of humor but it's not pro or con.
  - sp332 12y ago
    The service is going down and they're going to delete my data in a year. But they pitch it to me like it's some great thing.
  - jarcane 12y ago
    A product which provided actual value and novel functionality to end users has been swallowed up by a larger corporation with maybe a 25% chance of actually getting any kind of continued life, if this plays out as these things usually do. And once again, this is pitched as winning the trophy, because the culture has become more obsessed with collecting a payoff than actual long-term growth and innovation. In the 1990's when Creative Labs bought out and shuttered Aureal and basically killed 3D audio in its crib, it was a fucking travesty that audio buffs still mourn to this day. If that'd happened now, in 2015's "startup culture," we'd be expected to cheer that they got theirs.
    - nedwin 12y ago
      "Provided actual value" but unfortunately couldn't extract enough value from their users to survive independently. The choice was likely between shutting down and going on unemployment or finding a soft landing.
      - markemer 12y ago
        Yeah. And it seems like a natural fit for DropBox. I'd love this service on my dropbox. And I had never heard of it before. Dropbox is looking for ways to stay competitive with the likes of Google, etc, and I'm amazed at how well they are doing.
    - jscheel 12y ago
      To be fair, if anyone could keep this technology alive, it would be Dropbox.
    - patio11 12y ago
      In an alternate universe, this genre would sound like: "We produced a great product which costs $60k a month to run but which only charges customers $8k. We hope you have enjoyed being subsidized by our investors and below-market salaries, but there is simply no more subsidy left. We received an offer of a soft landing, which means the team is taken care of and the founders get a consolation prize which doesn't quite make up for spurning the BigCo offers they turned down to get here. We took it. Please tell uninvolved third parties who have never even heard of us before to mock us on the Internet, as is customary in these sorts of situations." We do not ask people to actually write that because to do so would be petty, cruel, and beneath a community organized around people who make things.
- elsurudo 12y ago
  Heh, I was actually looking for those very words. While similar in style, this lacked them, which I found unsatisfying. Maybe people are more careful now to stay away from some specific keywords...
- jedberg 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure Dropbox has been buying a company every few weeks for the last few years. You just haven't heard about most of them.
minimaxir 12y ago
It's worth noting that Pixelapse is YC W12, and has only raised a little seed money since then. (https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/pixelapse https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/pixelapse) Seems like a little bit of Y Combinator vertical integration.
- jscheel 12y ago
  I had never even heard of them, but seems like a pretty cool product.
bluthru 12y ago
>We started Pixelapse with the mission of building the definitive version control and collaboration platform for creatives. Ugh, stop calling them that.
- cwbrandsma 12y ago
  I'm with you on that. I seriously hate the term "creatives", I've only seen it used in a derogatory way (either by or against). I just can't take anyone seriously when they use that word to describe themselves or their clients. Could also be a trigger for me, I word with a lot of designers, artists, and videos guys/gals. Most are pretty good, but all the ones that call themselves "a creative" are guaranteed to be pretty elitist about it.
  - btown 12y ago
    What would be a better word? "Creative professionals" comes to mind, but then that seems to exclude hobbyists, who could still derive a lot of value from a program like this.
    - bluthru 12y ago
      Designers design. Artists create art. Almost every job requires creativity.
aaronbrethorst 12y ago
Props, but this should've been the lead sentence in the post: Pixelapse as a standalone product will continue to operate and be supported for the next year as we work towards this goal, at which point we’ll offer a migration plan for your work.
bane 12y ago
Joining or was bought by?
- zaroth 12y ago
  Yes.
avtar 12y ago
Does anyone know if any open source alternatives exist, hosted or self-hosted? We were planning on moving away from Subversion for tracking changes to design related PDFs and PSDs and this seemed appealing due to the extra metadata that could be displayed with revisions but now we're back to square one.
- sogen 12y ago
  github supports psd
bake 12y ago
Pixelapse looks similar to what Drew described in his YC application, responding to the question "If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, feel free to list them. One may be something we've been waiting for.": His response: ..."a wiki with version-controlled drawing canvases that let you draw diagrams or mock up UIs (Thinkature is kind of related, but this is more text with canvases interspersed than a shared whiteboard) to help teams get on the same page and spec things out better (we use Visio and Powerpoint at Bit9, which sucks)"
guelo 12y ago
One of the worst things at my previous job was when the designers forced pixelapse onto developers' workflow. It was so clumsy and there just wasn't any benefit over Google Drive.
jacksayswatt 12y ago
Not even close to decent source control.

118 points by artsandsci 12y ago

Our Incredible Journey claims another. Interesting though, Dropbox appears to be on a buying spree. They just claimed Cloudon last week, now this.

martythemaniak 12y ago
What exactly is your problem? That they didn't publicly flagellate themselves to your liking? That they "sold out"? That they build something valuable, but the next Google? Or you just get kicks out of being a snarky ass?
- elsurudo 12y ago
  http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com
- Argorak 12y ago
  Because it's often of no interest for the customer. At all. It's like a star at the Oscars saying thanks to all the fans that supported them, except that there is no film, no Oscar and no fans. From a customers perspective, it's probably for the worst, even.
  - Kiro 12y ago
    > Because it's often of no interest for the customer. At all. So what? Why must every single word be about the customer? I find "our incredible journey" posts inspirational and as long as they are clear what will happen with the service and what it means for the customers I don't see what the problem is.
    - Argorak 12y ago
      Because they are addressed to the customer and for most of them, the aren't inspirational, because they are not entrepreneurs. For what happens to the service, 2 paragraphs in my inbox is quite enough.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  Did the comment you're replying to change? I don't see any complaints or snark. There is a touch of humor but it's not pro or con.
- sp332 12y ago
  The service is going down and they're going to delete my data in a year. But they pitch it to me like it's some great thing.
- jarcane 12y ago
  A product which provided actual value and novel functionality to end users has been swallowed up by a larger corporation with maybe a 25% chance of actually getting any kind of continued life, if this plays out as these things usually do. And once again, this is pitched as winning the trophy, because the culture has become more obsessed with collecting a payoff than actual long-term growth and innovation. In the 1990's when Creative Labs bought out and shuttered Aureal and basically killed 3D audio in its crib, it was a fucking travesty that audio buffs still mourn to this day. If that'd happened now, in 2015's "startup culture," we'd be expected to cheer that they got theirs.
  - nedwin 12y ago
    "Provided actual value" but unfortunately couldn't extract enough value from their users to survive independently. The choice was likely between shutting down and going on unemployment or finding a soft landing.
    - markemer 12y ago
      Yeah. And it seems like a natural fit for DropBox. I'd love this service on my dropbox. And I had never heard of it before. Dropbox is looking for ways to stay competitive with the likes of Google, etc, and I'm amazed at how well they are doing.
  - jscheel 12y ago
    To be fair, if anyone could keep this technology alive, it would be Dropbox.
  - patio11 12y ago
    In an alternate universe, this genre would sound like: "We produced a great product which costs $60k a month to run but which only charges customers $8k. We hope you have enjoyed being subsidized by our investors and below-market salaries, but there is simply no more subsidy left. We received an offer of a soft landing, which means the team is taken care of and the founders get a consolation prize which doesn't quite make up for spurning the BigCo offers they turned down to get here. We took it. Please tell uninvolved third parties who have never even heard of us before to mock us on the Internet, as is customary in these sorts of situations." We do not ask people to actually write that because to do so would be petty, cruel, and beneath a community organized around people who make things.
elsurudo 12y ago
Heh, I was actually looking for those very words. While similar in style, this lacked them, which I found unsatisfying. Maybe people are more careful now to stay away from some specific keywords...
jedberg 12y ago
I'm pretty sure Dropbox has been buying a company every few weeks for the last few years. You just haven't heard about most of them.

minimaxir 12y ago

It's worth noting that Pixelapse is YC W12, and has only raised a little seed money since then. (https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/pixelapse https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/pixelapse) Seems like a little bit of Y Combinator vertical integration.

jscheel 12y ago
I had never even heard of them, but seems like a pretty cool product.

bluthru 12y ago

>We started Pixelapse with the mission of building the definitive version control and collaboration platform for creatives. Ugh, stop calling them that.

cwbrandsma 12y ago
I'm with you on that. I seriously hate the term "creatives", I've only seen it used in a derogatory way (either by or against). I just can't take anyone seriously when they use that word to describe themselves or their clients. Could also be a trigger for me, I word with a lot of designers, artists, and videos guys/gals. Most are pretty good, but all the ones that call themselves "a creative" are guaranteed to be pretty elitist about it.
- btown 12y ago
  What would be a better word? "Creative professionals" comes to mind, but then that seems to exclude hobbyists, who could still derive a lot of value from a program like this.
  - bluthru 12y ago
    Designers design. Artists create art. Almost every job requires creativity.

aaronbrethorst 12y ago

Props, but this should've been the lead sentence in the post: Pixelapse as a standalone product will continue to operate and be supported for the next year as we work towards this goal, at which point we’ll offer a migration plan for your work.

bane 12y ago

Joining or was bought by?

zaroth 12y ago
Yes.

avtar 12y ago

Does anyone know if any open source alternatives exist, hosted or self-hosted? We were planning on moving away from Subversion for tracking changes to design related PDFs and PSDs and this seemed appealing due to the extra metadata that could be displayed with revisions but now we're back to square one.

sogen 12y ago
github supports psd

bake 12y ago

Pixelapse looks similar to what Drew described in his YC application, responding to the question "If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, feel free to list them. One may be something we've been waiting for.": His response: ..."a wiki with version-controlled drawing canvases that let you draw diagrams or mock up UIs (Thinkature is kind of related, but this is more text with canvases interspersed than a shared whiteboard) to help teams get on the same page and spec things out better (we use Visio and Powerpoint at Bit9, which sucks)"

guelo 12y ago

One of the worst things at my previous job was when the designers forced pixelapse onto developers' workflow. It was so clumsy and there just wasn't any benefit over Google Drive.

jacksayswatt 12y ago

Not even close to decent source control.