While Xdrive has been the leader in DAM for several years, seen bankruptcies and poor management/leadership in there many reincarnations, like, 100% Free Service to Free 50MBs accounts, 5GB and higher plans in the Paying Services options, and now back to a focus on the 5GB for Free service, as long as you are have an AOL Screen Name.

AOL management has been in part played a key role in these issues that Xdrive consumers have been facing. Be clear on the thinking behind it, it’s to improve your overall experience when using the One-Stop AOL Portal, known as [AOL.com], here you’ll be able to get an Free email account (AOL or AIM), Free storage and sharing capabilities with Xdrive (don’t forget to check out the new feature at Xdrive, Xdrive Shows), AOL Pictures, Instant Messaging, and many more cool Free services.

Now having said all that, later I will post information about the DAM Industry and the current and new players competing for consumers Digital Assets.

In my opinion, Microsoft is going to the biggest player in the DAM Industry in the near future. I beleive that MS has a vision that will change PC’s as we know them. PC’s will have no hard drives.

Yes, that’s correct, no hard drives. You’ll store all your Digital Assets on Microsoft’s storage severs.

Think I am crazy? There’s already a player in this new field. It’s starts by using the same technique AOL used when they started. Dumb the whole thing down. Simple to use custom made applications, like a browser, email, UI for navagation around the box, using an Open Source OS. If you want to know what it is, I’ll be glad to post information about it.

I’ll comment more about the DAM Industry!

Thanks and Best Regards
DAM Pro

For me this free online backup app looks interesting. On installation IDrive-E will schedule a backup of the ‘My Documents’. After a peek at their help file, I came to know that I could customize the backups. This is easily done by selecting the files and folders that I consider as sensitive and using the scheduling wizard to schedule the backups for a convenient frequency and time of my choice. I was able to adjust the bandwidth used by the application so that my regular use of the Internet remained unaffected.

You can restore files and folders from IDrive-E to the local computer with a simple drag-and-drop operation using a Windows-like Explorer interface or the main screen. IDrive-E also supports multiple drag-and-drop operations using Explorer view. IDrive-E retains 30 versions of backed up and you can restore any of these 30 versions, including the most recent version of your data files.

There is good protection for the data transferred with IDrive-E. The data is first encrypted with a private encryption key stored on the user’s computer. Then 128-bit SSL is used to transmit all data to and there is also 256-bit AES on storage.

In order to get a Free 5GB Xdrive Plus storage account you will need an AOL screen name, if you don’t have one then you can signup for one free and get an AOL email account with 2GB of space too.

Now that you have your new AOL screen name and password you can use them to sign in to your Xdrive Plus account and store many types of digital assets, like Word files, Excel files, PDF files, pictures, music, your browser bookmarks, your AOL email attachments, AOL Pictures.

Using the Xdrive Plus Web Interface you’ll be able to upload files or folders, share them with others. These files can be pictures, Word files, Excel files, etc.

Using our Desktop Application you will be able to do things with your Xdrive Plus account, like drag and drop files from your local (C:\ drive) to your Internet Hard Drive (X:\ drive).

The Desktop Application also provides other features, like scheduling backups, and backup now. [xdrive.com]

Our competitors do not offer the combination of services that an Xdrive Plus account offers. If you need more space then you can upgrade to 50GB for $9.95 a month or $99.50 annually.

If you are an AOL consumers who subscribes to other AOL Premium Services of more then $23.95 a month you’ll get your Xdrive Plus 50GB for Free.

Now that you’ve got your Xdrive Plus account you can take your data with you where ever you go. How?

Using your AOL credentials you can login using any computer that has an Internet connection, just use a browser and go to [xdrive.com] and enter your screen name and password to access your digital assets anytime, anyplace. [xdrive.com]

Do you have a WAP enabled PDA or cell phone? Soon you will be able to access your digital assets stored on your Internet Hard Drive using Xdrive Mobile Service and download your digital assets.

Thanks and Best Regards, Doctor Xdrive

I think their servers are just currently overwhelmed and it should all pan out over the next few days.

As of ‘right now’ (as in to say that it may not still be when this comment is read) I was able to get right in on the desktop application. The one thing I liked about XDrive was being able to view your drive in Windows Explorer.