I had to promote competitors, but in the case of backups, I think there is room for a lot of service providers.  There certainly are vast numbers of people and businesses out there that still need backups.  I see other online storage providers as fellow evangelists, spreading the good word of online backups, and of the importance of backing up in general.  Plus, there are a lot of firms out there with a lot more marketing heft than The Backup Plan.

What is my point?  Well, I’ve seen Mozy popping up in online ads all over the place, most frequently at Pandora (the awesome build-your-own internet radio station site).  Mozy is owned by EMC and provides a very cost effective backup solution to end users (although there are some reports of trouble with the service).  Also, Carbonite has recently hooked up with Sun to offer a 30-day trial as an option during the install of java.  How huge is that?!  At some point, nearly everyone installs java, so that is going to get a lot of eyes on your product.  Carbonite, by the way, is also an aggressively priced service.  They are top-notch, and they have a geek-tastic name.

Remember, please, backup somewhere!