Facebook adds Dropbox integration to Groups to become a file-sharing force

Facebook edges into productivity tool territory by adding Dropbox integration to Groups.

Today Facebook and Dropbox announced they’re teaming up to offer file storage and sharing to Facebook users. “Today we’re psyched to announce that you can share stuff from Dropbox right inside Facebook Groups!” the Dropbox blog reads. “Now you can share notes with your study group, add the latest game schedule to your basketball team’s group, or post a birthday video to your family’s group at lightning speed from wherever you are.”

After connecting your Facebook and Dropbox accounts, users will be able to pull up the contents of their Dropbox folders and pick and drop content into Facebook Groups. Everything added to a Group from Dropbox will also be viewable via smartphones and tablets.

Users have already had the ability to upload files to Groups, but it’s been a limited feature (anything shared, for example, had to be under 25MB). The Dropbox partnership means more types of media – like video – will be uploadable and that size cap will dramatically increase.

The deal is pretty win-win-win, though if anybody’s coming out ahead it’s easily Dropbox. The market for cloud storage and sharing is heating up, and while Dropbox has become a venerable name in this space competition from Box, Skydrive, and Google Drive has been significant. A tie to Facebook is a big benefit, though, and means that anyone using Groups as a real sharing function is going to go ahead and connect to their Dropbox account or get one. The move also means Facebook probably doesn’t have any serious cloud ambitions.

The win for Facebook, obviously, is that Groups is getting beefed up and could become a much more viable collaboration tool. Social business and productivity tools are making a big push and getting ridiculously high valuations – think Yammer, Evernote, and juggernaut Salesforce. Of course, the hurdle is that Facebook has an image and that image is social… just social. But you can’t claim to be a productivity feature unless you build out productivity features, so it’s a smart move. And that last win, clearly, is for users. The new feature will be rolling out starting today. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

The RIAA appears to be dying, tax records show

The RIAA's revenue has dropped

 Things aren’t looking so good for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), one of the primary groups behind anti-piracy efforts like the Stop Online Piracy Act and the ‘six strikes’ deal with Internet service providers.

As  TorrentFreak giddily points out, the RIAA’s most recent tax filing shows that the group’s revenue for the period that ended on March 31, 2011, has fallen 44 percent over the two years prior. Chances are, the financial outlook is even more grim for 2012.

RIAA revenue for the period topped out at $29.1 million, a significant fall from the $51.35 million the group brought in two years ago. The number of employees also plummeted during the same period, diving from 117 to just 72.

The reason for the fall in revenue is primarily a result of a drop in dues paid by the major record labels that serve as RIAA members. In its filing from two years earlier, the RIAA reported member dues of $49.8 million, reports Digital Music News. The group’s most recent filing shows that number now clocks in at just $27.9 million.

Interestingly, the first half of 2011 was one of the best for the music industry as a whole, according to Nielsen SounScan. The first six months of the year delivered a modest 1 percent rise in total album sales — the first gain the industry saw in six years.

Despite the drop in revenue and member dues, RIAA executives are stilling laughing all the way to the bank. Former RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol received $1.75 million, the most of any RIAA employee. Current Chairman and CEO Cary Sherman (who was the group’s president at the time) received the second highest salary, $1.36 million. The nine other highest-paid RIAA employees all received salaries between $309,000 and $715,000.

The amount of money the RIAA spends on lobbying the U.S. government has remained about the same over the past few years, at a steady $2.3 million annually.

Fortunately for Web users, the amount of money the RIAA has collected in legal fees has dropped significantly, falling from $16.5 million to $2.34 million thanks to the group’s decision to stop going after individual file-sharers in court, reports TorrentFreak.

View the full 2010-2011 RIAA IRS filing here.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com