Company
Data storage used to be an expensive aspect of computing. Ten years ago, Terabyte(TB) storage drives were only accessible to the wealthy or huge organizations. But times have changed and now TB storage is practically accessible to everyone at affordable prices.
Over the years there been multiple cloud storage solutions, I still remember when Dropbox first came out, it was a dream come true! Online storage started to extend the physical storage capacity we had on our desktops/laptops. The best part? There's usually a free tier where 5GB to 10GB of free storage accounts were given away, and you could progressively earn more by doing certain tasks such as introducing friends etc. (Note: this was only necessary if you could not afford a paid subscription based account or are too stingy to part with your money monthly for a larger capacity.)
Then slowly more options became available as competitors started to jump in on the bandwagon. We started to see Google Cloud Storage, then Microsoft came out with their OneDrive Storage to name a few bigger players. There are probably hundreds more cloud storage services out in the cloud, some less well known, some have limitations such as cold storage without the ability to share files etc.
Still people used physical storage drives, as it was the low-cost storage solution of choice for many. Compared to having to pay an annual subscription of say $200 for a 1TB cloud drive, physical drives were still more cost effective. However, even though physical storage drives are great and easy to use, but you can't access it from anywhere in the world unless you bring the drive with you.
Also they were vulnerable to getting corrupted and aren't exactly shock resistant if you're carrying them around. Though, to be fair, the newer portable hard drives are a bit more hardy and can take a bump or two, but failure rates are still there.
Now I believe the cost of storage is probably not the biggest issue we face today, but rather it is the ability to sync all the files in one central location where it is easy to access. Raise your hand if you are guilty of having multiple cloud storage accounts with various cloud storage services. The average person would probably have a Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive account in addition to the mess of files and folders on their desktops, laptops, phones, tablets etc...
To date, no cloud storage service provider had ever thought of bringing it all together, syncing the various different online storage accounts into one powerful cloud storage solution. Not until now, yes, today we'd like to introduce you to Publist. We dare say that Publist is the cloud storage solution of the future, and for good reason.
The Publist team consists of it's two founders:
Will Haering is an entrepreneur, advocate, and developer working to change the way we do work in the cloud. He previously attended Phillips Exeter Academy. He's worked with the Precision Engineering Research Group at MIT, built software at TetraScience, Symphony Commerce, Restocks, and StratoDem Analytics, and volunteered as a founding director at the Project for Better Journalism. He recently worked on simplifying news distribution with Perigraph and is now building a desktop in the cloud at Publist.
Ben Chappell is an entrepreneur, growth marketer, and sales person working on changing the way people manage their files. Ben has previously founded a newsletter and chatroom for day traders, worked on a decentralized solution for the carbon trade with Bit-C2 technologies, and has consulted for Synstream Energy, a public mining and natural gas company. Ben is now the Head of Growth at Publist where he aims to show people how to centralize their cloud files and workflows.
Enter Publist, a cloud desktop storage solution that features file-syncing services to connect all your OneDrive, Google Drive, Drop Box and other cloud storage accounts.
The founders vision for Publist is a window into all your cloud files, bridging your desktop and cloud data.
The end goal of Publist is to become the first universal cloud file system:
The most basic function of Publist is as a cloud storage solution. This is pretty straightforward where you can upload files for archiving to clear up precious hard disk space. It can also serve as your backup drive in case those fragile spinning-discs fail you when you most need them.
The interesting thing about Publist is it allows you to connect to external storage providers such as Amazon S3. Google Cloud Storage, Digital Ocean Spaces, Encrypted Drives, Backblaze B2 are coming soon.
Next we come to the main highlight of Publist, connecting and syncing to third party apps. As of this writing, they have a pretty good selection of apps which you can connect to which include the following:
Besides the 12 available apps which you can connect to currently, they have an even more extensive list of apps that will be added in the near future. Among these apps are the following:
The whole idea of Publist was to help people organize their files and folders from various sources in one central location. As we've seen above, this is achievable with the many apps which can be connected and synced with Publist. Seriously this cloud storage solution can only get more powerful once more integrations are made available. As it is now, it is already very powerful, allowing you to connect to major cloud drives such as OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox.
Other than the various file-syncing services and cloud storage services provided by Publist, there is also a Hyper-Collaborative Apps Suite that is akin to Microsoft's 365 Office Apps and Google Docs. The suite consists of:
In addition to the awesome apps listed above, you will also be able to use Publist to visualize various data through a cloud-native file system that allows the storage and analytics of customer data.
This feature may not seem important to most of us but it will definitely come in handy when the need arises, you will how convenient it is to be able to access your data from anywhere in the world at any time.
So we've gone through what Publist is and what can be expected from them in the future. However how does it perform in reality some of you may ask.
We've got you covered there as we will talk a little bit about our experience with Publist so far.
Our experience using the platform so far has been pretty positive. It was easy to setup and connect external cloud storage services we have such as OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox.
It's also fairly easy and straightforward to copy or link files and folders from say OneDrive over to your Publist drive. The implementation may not be perfect yet but the founders are making improvements on a daily basis.
For example, when we first started on the platform about two weeks ago there was no option to copy or link your files and folders, and it was just copy by default. However, after feedback from the community, the feature to just link was added in a few days time.
Customer support is also responsive as responses are received fairly quickly for a startup and the founders themselves are answering the questions at the moment.
It's also comforting to know that they are backed up by venture capitalists, which means they have money to keep them going for the long term.
The best part is they are having an offer over on Pitchground now with a Life Time Deal you can't resist.
If you'd like to find out more about the Publist deal then you may visit the Publist deal page on Pitchground, the deal won't last forever so best to grab them while they're available to avoid unnecessary regret once it is over.
If all the functions and features don't interest you, it is still well worth the money to have a life time online storage solution compared to having to pay monthly subscriptions for a cloud storage drive.
You can also check out their roadmap to understand more on where Publist is headed and what to expect next.
We hope you found this review to be helpful and informative. Do share it to people whom you think may benefit from this review. Until the next one.
Email has been around for decades. Even with the emergence of other communication channels such as direct messengers, mobile messengers etc. email remains relevant and an important communication tool for business.
Email is usually the primary channel businesses communicate with their customers. This makes email a big deal. This also means that you should not skimp when looking for a reliable professional email hosting solution for your business.
However, reality is always different from ideal situations and many businesses today still rely on FREE email accounts (e.g. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail) to run their business.
There can be many reasons for this. Some business owners are just not tech savvy and all they know are the big three email providers mentioned above.
Some business owners use FREE email accounts to try to save costs and maximize profits.
There are serious drawbacks to using FREE email accounts for your business. We will be looking at 7 ways FREE email accounts can hurt your business below.
FREE email accounts...
Let's take a step back and talk about how you feel when you receive an email from a business trying to sell you something, but you noticed that they're using a FREE email address. How did that make you feel about the business?
Now we can't represent your thoughts and feelings. However, every time we receive an email from a business that's trying to pitch products and services to us, and we see that they are using a FREE email address... We instantly feel that this business is CHEAP and may not even be serious about their business.
The thing is, FREE email addresses do not have any brand representation. We'd dare say that if we sent you an email using a FREE email address you'd probably think the same about us as well.
As we mentioned above, FREE email addresses make your business look cheap. The problem runs deeper than just that, FREE email addresses can really hurt your business credibility.
First off, anyone can sign up for a FREE email address. There's no authenticity linked between your business, and a FREE email address, meaning your credibility in the receivers books goes way down.
FREE email addresses may be a dime a dozen, but prospects and leads cost a lot more. If you're pitching to cold leads, you can be sure that you only have one chance at projecting a professional image to them.
Don't ruin your first impression and jeopardize the credibility of your business by using a FREE email address. Get a domain for your business, and host your email and you can be sure to increase your business credibility.
Businesses receive hundreds if not thousands of emails a day. Decision makers do not have the time to go through each and every email they receive on a daily basis.
Now imagine you received two emails, one from [email protected] and another from [email protected].
Which email are you more likely to trust? Which email are you more likely to mistake as spam?
That's assuming the email from [email protected] even gets to the inbox. When you use a free email domain to send marketing emails, you run the risk of having deliver-ability issues.
There is a high chance that your emails will get stuck in a spam filter, and spam filters are a significant concern for email marketing.
So not only do you run the risk of your target audience mistaking your email as spam.
You also have a higher risk of being filtered by the email server's spam filter as spam and never get to the inbox in the first place!
The best way to avoid your email from being mistaken as spam is to get a domain for your email and use a professional email hosting solution.
That way not only does your email look professional, you will also inspire confidence in your target audience to open and read your message.
As we have discussed above, FREE email addresses tend to be mistaken for spam. This literally translates to it having lower open rates.
Think about it, if you thought it was spam, would you even bother to open the email? You'd be hard-pressed to just hit the delete button instantly.
Campaign monitor reports an average open rate of 17.92% in 2019 for all industries.
Below is a breakdown of some email related statistics such as open rates and bounce rates by industry averages. As we can see, the odds are not exactly in the senders favor. So don't further lower your chances of reaching out to prospects by using a FREE email account.
When you use a FREE email account, you are using a domain which you don't own. As such you have no control over the deliver-ability policies of your email.
Usually FREE email accounts are meant for personal use and not business use. If you plan on sending mass marketing mailers to your contact list then you are likely to be flagged as spam by the email provider.
So if you're planning to do mass mailing and don't want to ruin the chances of your marketing content reaching your audience, then use a professional email address. You will find that it will be worth every penny you spend.
Cyber security is becoming an increasing concern as we see more data breaches to large corporations with huge databases.
Yahoo! experienced a major data breach in 2014 which affected the account information of around 500 million users. The stolen information included email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, passwords, security questions and answers. The kicker, Yahoo! didn't know about it until 2016 when they started investigating this major cyber attack together with law enforcement officers.
In a more recent data breach in 2015, popular FREE email services were hacked and over 270 million accounts were stolen. This included a majority of users of popular Russian email service Mail.ru as well as users of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft email service were affected.
Hackers are more likely to target large corporations and FREE email services such as Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. This makes the hackers efforts more worthwhile compared to hacking a small organization's email server which would have a significantly smaller database.
There's a reason why large corporations are so adamant about cyber security. It would serve your business well if you subscribed to a professional email service which is not part of these large databases. Professional email hosting also boasts better security and support.
You may have noticed how personalized ads are these days.
What you may not know is that FREE email providers scan your email accounts in order to gather personal data about yourself and serve up personalized ads to you.
It may sound outrageous but it's true and it's happening. If you care about the privacy of your emails, then you should not be using FREE email services in the first place.
Also, you do not get any support from the FREE email providers should you run into technical difficulties. You are left to troubleshoot any issues that may come up, and we all know that as a small business owner, you already have your hands full.
When you use a professional email hosting service, you are not only paying for the email account, you are also paying for technical support. That in itself will give you one less item to worry about in your business.
Remember that you get what you pay for, and when it comes to FREE services, you get nothing in terms of support. It also comes with all the drawbacks that can potentially hurt your business badly.
There are other options for email hosting for your business besides the FREE providers. If you would like to have professional email hosting for your business then don't hesitate to reach out to us. We are able to help you with your professional email hosting needs.
Please give us a call at +60 10 657 6688 or contact us via email for a FREE Consultation session. We look forward to helping you have a safe and professional business email hosting service.
Copyright © 2004 – 2024 All Rights Reserved Seraph Studios (002708832-T)