Anyone else notice that Dropbox globally indexes files? If you upload a large file already elsewhere on their servers (Linux distro ISO, scene-made TVRip or DVDRip, etc), it "uploads" instantly, and will begin downloading immediately on your other linked Dropbox machines.
Makes me wonder how hard it is to download a file by hash (via the Linux client, parts of which are open-source), without having the file, or how easy it would be for HBO or some other media company to say "here are the hashes for scene rips of The Wire--please furnish matching account emails, thanks".
Apple does this with iTunes/MobileMe, and any cloud storage player is aiming for the same network effect.
The cloud storage play is huge for Apple... first they sell you the video, then they sell you the space to store the video, but it doesn't actually take them anymore hard drive space.
And as the media gets bigger and bigger (HD today, who knows tomorrow), Apple sells you more and more storage "space" and their costs only go up marginally.
It's the stuff billion dollar business plans are made of.
-- Every time a video is encoded, it hashes differently. So a studio could find a torrented file and find people downloaded that exact copy, but they couldn't just ask for every copy of a show.
-- If this became a problem, you could toss some random metadata on a file and it would hash differently. Or zip a file/program with a text file containing a guid. Etc.
You know this makes me think: If you could find out if two files are exactly alike, could you then make a cloud storage services that doesn't require uploads of files it already has on the entire cloud?
IE, John uploads True Blood Episode 4, Season 12.
Paul tries to upload the same file. They match exactly (Except maybe for names). The Uploader negates the upload and makes it look like the file is now in Paul's list, when really only one copy exists.
Awesome. Dropbox is an awesome product. I install Dropbox on every single machine I have.. it's one of the first things I install. And it's saved me countless hours.
Now if only they could sort out the folder sharing model so large folders shared by someone else (who upgraded) don't use up my personal space... (yeah, I know they're working on it.. hurry up!)
Yeah, it basically just uploads and downloads files.
Except I didn't have to teach my mom how to use it.
Except that I never have to worry if it's working correctly.
Except that it works on every platform I use.
Except that it's just a folder on my computer.
These aren't features you put on a retail box, but they are the features that set Dropbox apart. "Just works" is incredibly easy to say but incredibly hard to engineer.
Agreed. Dropbox is one of those rare examples of a product that takes no explanation and just works perfectly all the time, every time. It doesn't do a lot, but those guys have their core product down to an art.
Whenever I demo something that I've built that seems mind-numbingly simple in the demo, I have to remind myself that things that work well should seem simple.
I don't use Dropbox, but this sounds like something that can be easily solved with a symlink. And Windows actually (sort of) supports them: they are called junction points.
My god people, he just described a toaster. Is a toaster awesome because its operation is straightforward?
Or, if you don't like that example, compare it to just about any online game. Consider the incredible complexity and operation requirements of Call of Duty (or whatever you like) and then come up with an adjective for it. How about "awesome". Well, no, that won't do, because Dropbox is "awesome" and Call of Duty is several 1000 times more awesome, by far.
Not to mention that most games are also playable by non-technical people.
Get some perspective people. Fanboyism is really pathetic and there's a lot of it going on right here.
> Is a toaster awesome because its operation is straightforward?
Yes. We all own one don't we? Ever tried to toast bread without a toaster? It takes far more effort, is far less efficient, and the results are usually far less consistent.
There's a possibility that this guy's opinion is also the consensus opinion in which case I'm not going to win any arguments. This was all a semantic misunderstanding. When I think of the word "awesome" I think of something that inspires "awe", which I think is beyond the scope of file syncing.
Let me ask you guys one thing though: Is there anyone here willing to admit that they would be incapable of making a workable clone of dropbox in a reasonable amount of time--not on the same scale, of course. The fact that almost everyone who comes to this website could produce something of that complexity is maybe a clue into all this irrationality. Most of us, by contrast, couldn't make Call of Duty (a game which, actually, I've never played). Maybe we're setting our standards where our capabilities are?
> When I think of the word "awesome" I think of something that inspires "awe", which I think is beyond the scope of file syncing.
I see your point. But having struggled with file syncing for literally decades, having somebody come along and make it so easily that it seems unimpressive and obvious really is very cool.
It's kinda like the old adage, "the best special FX in a movie are the ones you don't notice."
Yes, I would admit I can't make it, and I am a reasonable competent developer (admittedly I'm a DBA first and a developer second and I tend to do different types of apps when I do development, but...).
Remember there is a difference between making synching software, which is relatively easy, and making synching software that is absolutely reliable (so far as I've seen) and easy to use for anyone. These things are relatively hard.
Now, to do that and produce a client for every major OS out there as well as a web interface... Yes, I am impressed.
I just wish they had one smaller tier out there though. It would be alot easier to justify say $60 a year on my tight budget than it is $10 a month (smallest paid tier last I checked...)
Before Dropbox, there were already 80+ attempts at doing exactly the same thing by various other companies (Microsoft by itself was responsible for at least eight of them concurrently.), and none of them worked well enough that they were ever adopted by anyone you've heard of. Dropbox is just right, and not for technological reasons, but rather for perfect customer fit.
To put it another way—it takes more people to build a bridge than to craft a samurai sword, but which metalworker brought more experience to bear? Games are regularly pushed out by developers just starting in the industry—all that's required of them is a willingness to be on the bleeding edge of graphics hardware APIs, and precious, precious manhours. Dropbox, on the other hand, could only have been designed by someone with an extremely high aptitude for user interfaces.
I think you are missing a certain perspective that some of the commentators here are sharing. If you take Swombat's perspective as an entrepreneur that both greatly appreciates Dropbox as a utility, but also sees how it's ease of use makes the company potentially very lucrative and wants the same level of craftsmanship for his own company. Then these things blend to make and awesome product. Similarly, the ipod was awesome for those who love music.
I don't know Swombat, so I don't mean to misattribute thoughts to him, but I believe there is truth to the perspective I described. Also, I am not suggesting you "just don't get startups" or anything dumb like that.
So by your logic, if they cut the code base in half, took out everything that made it just work. We would then have something that easily looks twice as complex and this would be twice as awesome?
You obviously have no idea just how many things can go wrong in that apparently simple process. With dropbox, it just doesn't go wrong. That's what's awesome about it - flawless, works every time, and quasi-instant.
It's 20x quicker, if i want to give a file to my cofounder who's sitting next to me, to put it in our shared dropbox than to use any other method of sharing. Every other method of sharing takes at least 10-20 seconds or more. Dropbox takes half a second. (only exception being, of course, very large files, where usb sticks still help)
Exactly, it's like having an intranet drive, everywhere. Without having to VPN in, and fight with bandwidth problems and other such issues. Plus, since it also stores locally, you can work offline on things that are in your dropbox and it'll sync as soon as you get connectivity.
You'd think so, right? It's a little more than that though. Dropbox is useful to me for the following reasons:
--It is an easy way to share music with a couple friends who aren't tech savvy. Installing it was easy for them and I was able to say "just drag it from iTunes to your dropbox folder" and it worked. Other ways of sharing were too complex.
--It keeps software that doesn't have built in syncing synced. I use it to sync 1Password and more importantly (to me) PersonalBrain between my home and work computers. It works fast and flawlessly.
--It's an easy way to transfer files from home/work. Sometimes I'll download an app or something that I know I'll end up redownloading again at home. With dropbox I just throw it in there and when I get home I don't have to find the download link and wait for it to download, I just open the folder and there it is.
--It keeps a few files I use all the time available from anywhere. Mostly ebooks, a couple videos and a few documents and templates (resume etc.).
Overall though it's the ease of use and reliability that keeps me using it. Even if it could do all that but was a pain to use/install I'd probably still be searching for other solutions.
Exactly as I said. It basically uploads and downloads files; your hyphenated examples are all under the category of "uploading and downloading". It does other things, but that's basically it. I hate it when I speak plain facts and get everybody disagreeing with me.
I think the problem that you are running into is that while the concept is simple and essentially what they have done is make it simple to upload/download files and easily share across computers with yourself and others, this is a nontrivial problem. On top of that, the implementation works seamlessly across different operating systems. The reaction you are running into is probably akin to people who love the iPod. A device which does one thing and does it well.
As you have seen others mention, by creating a solution to a nontrivial problem (and if you have ever had to deal with file synchronization you know this is not simple) it has enabled usage scenarios that were previously too difficult to accomplish or at least not worth the hassle. So I can understand people's reactions to your comments.
Wikis are awesome. All they do is store text and allow it to be edited. It is the very fact that they don't have a structured model of ACLs and posts/comments/pages/votes/whatever else on top of them that make them flexible and useful, and allow projects like Wikipedia to come into being.
Shell scripting is awesome. All it does is allow you to run C programs that write to one another's IO streams, but with this, you can chain pre-made processes together in any way you wish, without having to compile a single new line of code.
Forth is awesome, Lisp is awesome, LEGO is awesome. (Can you see where I'm going with this?) The awe is not inspired by what the thing does on its own; the awe comes from what the thing enables you to do, and how simple the solution is that solves so many different problems.
Clearly, it has not occurred to you that what Dropbox does is easier said than done.
What Dropbox does may not be awe-inspiring when considered in isolation, but the sheer number of failed predecessors who couldn't solve this conceptually simple problem is very impressive.
I am (as many of you probably are) the go-to guy in my family and non-technical friends for computer issues. I tell people about Dropbox because once I tell them, I know they wont have to annoy me for help again.
Side note: does anyone know what visualization tool was used for the dropbox-client-data-traffic-globe-thing video? I've seen that same visualization all over Google's campus in various buildings showing the location of their searches. Is it an open-source visualization library?
The users by nationality statistics are interesting. Australia has a population of about 21 million whilst the Netherlands has about 17 million, and yet the former doesn't rate a mention whilst the later does — why? My theory - bandwidth:
Xs4all is actually the most expensive consumer ISP in the Netherlands. The cheapest ISPs offer 20 Mb DSL for 20 euros per month. DSL is slowly becoming legacy technology due to high speed fiber and cable connections.
Oh, I thought it was middle of the range like Internode. The equivalent of Xs4all in Australia would be Telstra who's ADSL services start at 1.5M with 2gb (upload/download) for $39.95; additional usage charged at 15¢/MB and capped at an excess of $300.
That's pretty bad. Bandwidth caps and charges create a different mindset that hurts many providers like Dropbox. If i transfer a large file i only think about how long it will take, not how much it would cost. Unfortunately bandwidth caps are often due to a lack of competition between ISPs.
Which is exactly how it is in many parts of Canada. I can choose between cable and DSL, and both have bandwidth caps. While mine is a fairly generous 100 GB/month (good enough for me), I still keep a watch over my current totals, so I stay a little bit paranoid.
Looks like it's 4 million, which is still worth announcing.
With more users, I'm curious if paid accounts are growing at the same rate as free accounts. I also pretty much assume that a much higher percentage of all users in the US will be paid accounts versus other countries, but would be curious what their actual experience is.
Would be interesting to know what % of those users are paying any money.
I really hope they get their API sorted soon, i've been holding off looking at alternatives because it's always "close" but now i'm starting to consider other options.
has dropbox gotten acquisition offers? i feel like if I was microsoft I'd be chomping at the bit to integrate this into windows as a major selling point.
Microsoft does already have Live Mesh ( http://www.mesh.com/ ) which is a very similar product/service. Live Mesh does per folder synching and you can invite other users to share or read only on an individual folder basis.
They also acquired Foldershare years ago and it was remarkably similar, even had Windows/OS X integration, although they haven't done much with it since the acquisition. Dropbox feels like the much better designed younger sibling - the Web version is a first class citizen rather than some clunky admin panel, for example.
I really like the dropbox experience but I really wish they didn't limit the download bandwidth.
My dropbox is about 35 GB, I just installed dropbox on a brand new computer and the download speed is 7KB/sec. It will literally take almost 20 days to sync my files.
That's terrible.
By the way, I'm an early adopter and have introduced dropbox to many people, I just hope download speeds were somewhat decent.
Very interesting; try downloading a file from your Dropbox public folder via HTTP, and see if that's any faster. If it is, your ISP is probably throttling/QoSing Dropbox, the ports it uses, or the kind of traffic it generates specifically, and you should get in touch with them about it. If it's slow as well, your ISP might be having a peering problem to Dropbox's colo.
Yeah, i get pretty shitty speeds with dropbox too. But i'm guessing it's because i'm in europe and they only have US servers.. i usually max out at 100-200K which is pretty slow when you're used to 100MBit speeds :(
I just wish Apple will let to save the files you create on the iPad your Dropbox account. Sadly they will probably do that with Mobile Me (I have an account already), but it doesn't work as smoothly as Dropbox, especially for sharing with other users,IMO.
Just in case someone from the Dropbox team is reading this, I wanted to compliment on the web UI. Really, it kicks some serious ass. I'm usually very picky when it comes to websites and their design, but this one is just a piece of art.
For anyone who hasn't used it before, dropbox is great if you're in college. I use it to sync notes and assignments across all of my machines. I take notes in class on my laptop, and I can access them on my desktop. Furthermore, I can start assignments on my desktop at home, and work on them on my laptop between classes.
I especially liked the video. Just wondering: I see no activity in China. Does Dropbox work in China & is it just a matter of not enough traffic to show up? Can anyone confirm this?
Makes me wonder how hard it is to download a file by hash (via the Linux client, parts of which are open-source), without having the file, or how easy it would be for HBO or some other media company to say "here are the hashes for scene rips of The Wire--please furnish matching account emails, thanks".