Infobae scales global video production and simplifies workflows with Dropbox Enterprise

Background

Infobae, a digital media leader from Argentina, is one of the most popular Spanish-language online newspapers with over 61 million global readers. The company has successfully expanded to Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Spain, providing accurate, reliable information about today’s hottest topics around the globe.

From high-profile interviews with Lionel Messi in the US to in-depth segments with Pope Francis in Vatican City, Infobae's content production requires a powerful storage system for a huge library of raw files, including videos, photos and audio. These materials are crucial for their remote teams of editors, journalists and photographers to collaborate and create polished and engaging stories.

After its rapid growth, the company realised it needed a way to manage not only the increasing number of large video files, but also global collaboration between teams. “Prior to our office expansion, our storage needs were very different. Now, we require an almost infinite storage capacity and real-time synchronisation of files to up our game,” says Maximiliano Cejas, Technology and Infrastructure Manager at Infobae.

Challenge: pushing past the limits

On a busy news day, Infobae might run five cameras for a single interview, each capturing massive video files, and do it six times over. This intense load overwhelmed their local storage system, which just wasn’t cut out for such heavy demands.

“Without a virtual private network (VPN), transferring these enormous files became a sluggish, error-prone ordeal. Standard email and basic file-sharing services couldn’t handle the size, often resulting in corrupted or incomplete files that slowed down production and disrupted workflows.”

Another hurdle was the lack of version control in Infobae’s previous data center setup. Without the ability to restore deleted items or manage different file versions, the team risked permanent data loss, overwriting crucial raw files and losing previous edits—with no way to return to earlier versions if something went wrong. Clearly, version control was a must-have for their next storage solution.

Solution: scaling to greater success

“When looking for a top storage solution, we chose Dropbox Enterprise because of its price, quality and product offering—for us it was a natural choice,” Cejas says. “It provides us with the storage we need for our videos, photos and historical data, and allows us to scale and streamline content production. It’s also so easy for a team member to upload a finished recording to the cloud and for another to download it via a Dropbox link.”

Adopting Dropbox was straightforward—since it’s a cloud solution, the team just had to transfer all files from its servers to the cloud and configure the system to automatically sync with Dropbox daily. This way, they adjusted the workflow to save files in Dropbox instead of internal servers.

Users quickly adapted to saving files in Dropbox—a crucial transition for getting the most out of  the new tool. “Dropbox acts as an external storage location, accessible like a local folder on a computer. This familiar and intuitive interface made it easy for our team to adapt to it quickly,” Cejas says.

Since 2020, Dropbox has become key to Infobae's international operations. “For interviews abroad, where quick file transfer and editing are essential, having Dropbox lets us meet tight deadlines without any file transfer issues,” Cejas asserts. “We can spend more time working on the content instead of fixing file transfer problems and we’re also moving much faster.” 

Dropbox’s South American partner Tline Point also played a big role in Infobae’s smooth and consistent use of the solution. It offered support in Spanish, as well as local invoicing and payment options during a time when international payments were nearly impossible in Argentina. Without them, Cejas says, using Dropbox would have been almost impossible.

Results: a multifaceted solution for a diverse team

Even though Infobae started out using Dropbox as a storage solution, it quickly adopted other features. Infobae now uses shared folders and team storage spaces in Dropbox Enterprise to improve collaboration. This also allowed it to synchronise files in real time and across devices, so there was no need to re-upload and download files every time. 

The editorial team also manages access to all raw materials via administrative controls, gaining control of users, permissions, and policies, as well as monitoring activities with detailed audit logs and powerful compliance tools. This keeps sensitive files secure and gives team members only relevant access.

Version control also gives Infobae more confidence to keep pushing the boundaries and innovate. “With Dropbox, we can retrieve data that was erased up to a year ago and access various versions from the previous six months. The ability to do this is crucial; it has saved us many times during important editorial tasks,” says Cejas.

To operate smoothly and consistently, Infobae uses Dropbox in every step of their workflow across several teams, including its administrative personnel, sales teams, photographers, filmmakers and studios. Infobae's status as a top media outlet in the Spanish-speaking market is largely due to this versatile use.

Having Dropbox Enterprise also helps Infobae get around the region's internet and connectivity problems, which can be very difficult because of the region's evolving IT infrastructure. Dropbox Enterprise provides offline file access so team members can work on files without an internet connection. Once the connection is re-established, changes are instantly synchronized, guaranteeing productivity.