Ramblings from the Disco Office: Dancing with Visual Data

*Originally imagined as “From the Desk of the CEO”, our monthly newsletter was renamed after our CEO’s shag-covered disco ball office.*

Last month, I finally unboxed the Mavic Mini drone I received as a gift in December. I’m prone to lose or break these flying wonders and felt fortunate to still have it in one piece. The ready-to-fly kit had everything I’d need to become an amateur aerial photographer -- except a memory card.

So $34 and a Prime delivery later I had a 256GB microSD card on my doorstep. The ability to quickly purchase flash storage for $.13 per GB in a fingernail-sized card is mind-blowing. It reminded me of a purchase I made in 1994, shortly after launching an Internet service provider with my brother.

It was the early years of the World Wide Web with users pairing Windows 95 desktops and 14.4 kbps modems to access the rapidly growing “Information Superhighway.” It was an exciting time to be in technology and we were desperately needing a larger external storage device. Given our shoestring budget, we didn’t approach the decision lightly and ultimately settled for a 2GB refurbished model. It was the size of a large shoebox, the weight of a bowling ball, and cost us $1800 per GB in today’s dollars.

That’s a striking comparison when you consider the storage I purchased last month had 128 times the capacity and would be flown around in a quadcopter to capture HD video.

Which brings me to my point:

‍Storage isn’t getting smaller and cheaper. It’s already small and it’s already cheap.

Developing, managing, and transacting commercial real estate creates immense amounts of visual data (photos, videos, floorplans, virtual tours). Small, cheap storage will fuel the explosion of visual content in new devices and applications. We need better ways to organize and share this information. It’s why we built PocketBuildings -- to give CRE professionals a better way to manage all this information.

We love sharing what we’re up to at PocketBuildings and enjoy hearing from folks directly. Don’t hesitate to drop me a note to reminisce about Netscape browsers, swap drone tips, or to learn more about becoming a PocketBuilder.

Until next time...