6 ms·

I think this article is perfectly valid. What everyone here is forgetting is that we are a pretty focused demographic of technical people. If you ask the aver

by 51Cards 16y ago

I think this article is perfectly valid. What everyone here is forgetting is that we are a pretty focused demographic of technical people. If you ask the average CNN user what Dropbox is you'll probably get a blank stare. The fact that an article like this is BEING written is just another sign of Dropbox's success... it may be crossing the tipping point to main-stream media and adoption outside of the tech community. I bet if you looked you would have found something similar about Twitter at some point where social media savvy people were going "WTF? I've used it forever"

JonnieCache 16y ago
>cloud computing -- that catchall phrase corporations use to describe services delivered via the Internet With this line they are streets ahead of most pure tech sites in terms of accuracy.
- ch0wn 16y ago
  I love Dropbox for not using this horrible term.
  - nbashaw 16y ago
    Horrible term? Just because it's the catch phrase du jour doesn't mean it's totally meaningless. I get annoyed with the buzz and malapropism just as much as the next guy, but like it or not, cloud computing is a major global phenomenon.
    - zaidf 16y ago
      How? What does it mean? Any way I try to define it(other than how CNN puts it) I end up leaving out a huge chunk of cos that also claim to be into cloud computing. And I am not exCtly sure if anyone is in a position or authority to tell them "no you've got nothing to do with the cloud".
    - iamdave 16y ago
      It IS a meaningless phrase in the sense that it's being used. When I was studying network engineering, "the cloud" used to encompass the broader network environment that INCLUDED the Internet as an extension of your enterprise infrastructure. Now? It's a hyperbolic, singular phrase that is limited to using the internet as an extension of your operating system without fully explaining or at least detailing for the end user why it matters. Especially in the case of those god.awful Microsoft commercials. In their case, the way it's presented, the cloud is nothing less synonymous with social networking. Change your Facebook status from Windows? That's the cloud. Upload a picture to Flickr? That's the cloud. It's no better than that phase of 'web 2.0' that was nothing more than superficial design elements that included shiny buttons, dropping vowels and slapping the term 'beta' on everything. The web is cyclical and this is the latest cycle. While that in and of itself isn't BAD per se, it's a phrase that's come synonymous with "rockstar" and "ninja" when talking about hiring developers. A total and complete non sequitur.
    - kahawe 16y ago
      It still is a horrible term, as are most buzz words and hypes. And secondly, like it or not, it is nothing new - not even a new concept. See e.g. grid computing and what Foster et al. describe as "utility computing" in their vision; it makes cloud computing look more like a sub-category. I have the same feeling about "web 2.0" - it was merely "normal people" catching up with the tech savvy crowd on a large scale.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- FirstHopSystems 16y ago
  cloud computing, renting servers/VM's. I'm going to be the Hertz of Servers! Or maybe the AirBnb of computing power!.
- rakkhi 16y ago
  lol so true. I was ranting about the overuse of this term a few weeks back: http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-is-it-cloud-everything-now.html http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-is-it-cloud-everythin...
- Apocryphon 16y ago
  Good Chevy Chase reference.
chuhnk 16y ago
I agree, this will be big for dropbox and they deserve the acknowledgement. However I think a lot of us here feel the same way, which you can deem as somewhat childish. Its the sentiment "we were here first".
taylorbuley 16y ago
Forbes wrote a story on Dropbox last summer. Interesting to compare the two takes. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0628/technology-file-sharing-dropbox-google-files-without-borders.html http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0628/technology-file-shari...
nchlswu 16y ago
There's this tunnel vision that propagates in highly specialized communities like HN. Stepping back and viewing things from the bigger picture is a skill that is highly underrated. That being said, from my personal observations, Dropbox is knocking on the door and about to have a push outside of the core tech community. This article is just another sign that Dropbox is about to make a big push.
frossie 16y ago
I think this article is perfectly valid. Of course it is. My bigger surprise is that it doesn't feature what I now think of as the ultimate Dropbox evangelising line: "It's a folder. That syncs". [ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2153046 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2153046 ]
bradleyland 16y ago
Spot on. I am incredibly optimistic about Dropbox's future. It constantly blows my mind that home users don't have any file sharing running on their network. The go-to solution is to email files to each other, even while sitting on the same network. When I learned that Dropbox supported LAN sync, I immediately started recommending it as an alternative to emailing files back and forth. Just drop files you would normally email to each other in to the Dropbox folder, and magically it will appear on the other computer. BONUS! If you make changes, they're automatically shared in the other direction. Keep it under 2 GB and you get this for free. The response I get from users is consistently that of complete astonishment. Registering for and installing Dropbox is, for many people, a more straight forward process than getting file sharing working. Dropbox scratches a very common itch.
- tomazmuraus 16y ago
  It "kinda" supports LAN sync. Files still first need to be transfered to the cloud first before you can sync them over LAN. At least it was like this the last time I have looked at it (a few months ago).
  - phlux 16y ago
    It would be incredibly interesting if your dropbox machines all ran a bitorrent client that auto shared the syncing between them all. With logic to determine which machines are closest (in bandwidth) So that if I have my 5+ machines at home (desktops, laptops and phones, which all have the client on them) - they all see that they are on the same subnet and sync very fast between each other. Then update the cloud at the same time - in the same fashion... chop all the changes up amongst the machines. (sure, I still have a single pipe via my cable modem - but this would be helpful when I am on work lan too...) EDIT: it would be great to see an added layer of service on Dropbox such as the old Hamachi personal VPN services... Eventually - Ill be able to have a completely distributed, virtualized personal network across any machine I have an account...
    - DufusM 16y ago
      Windows Live Mesh, an equivalent Microsoft product, has the p2p sync functionality in addition to cloud sync. http://www.winsupersite.com/article/product-review/how-to-live-mesh-peer-to-peer-folder-sync.aspx http://www.winsupersite.com/article/product-review/how-to-li...
pge 16y ago
What is fascinating to me is how quickly dropbox spread outside the HN demographic. My 70 year old mother, who was as far from a techical user as one could be, asked me in early 2009 if I used dropbox so she could share some photos with me. That's when I realized they were really on to something. It was just that easy to use, and it was spreading very rapidly in non-technical communities - they had reached a user like my mother within 6 months of public release. Unbelievable, and a real testament to the simplicity and elegance of the product.
- ugh 16y ago
  Dropbox spread like wildfire at my small university in Germany. Not so much (or not only) among students but among Professors and TAs.
- Hovertruck 16y ago
  I recently got my dad's large real estate brokerage to start using Dropbox for all of their file sharing. Anyone who's ever worked in or near realty could tell you that the technology in the market is usually 5-10 years (at least) behind where it should be, so I considered this a huge accomplishment.
- franze 16y ago
  any product that installs growl per default on my system can not be mentioned in the same sentence with the terms "elegance".
niels 16y ago
My mom is using Dropbox. That says it all to me.
saidulislam 16y ago
well, the article is in tech section. for someone to read or write a tech article on cnn and not know about drobbox is a serious WTF
adamlashinsky 16y ago
I'm biased because I write for Fortune Magazine, but you put this perfectly. To prove your point, when I wrote about Twitter in Fortune in August, 2008, which was one of the first general business press articles about Twitter, I was well aware that 1) all the cool kids knew about it and 2) the rest of the country, Fortune's readers, did not. Here is that article, which seems a little quaint now: http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/06/technology/true_meaning_of_twitter_lashinsky.fortune/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/06/technology/true_meaning_of_t...
darrenkopp 16y ago
My Son's elementary school principal sends the PTA newsletter out via email with a link to it in his Dropbox. He couldn't figure out how to attach it to the email. I think Dropbox may be a bit more well known outside of the "techie" crowd more than you think.
luca-giovanni 16y ago
Dropbox wasn't the first such product and you can argue better ones exist out there. What they have done is make a product with little or no friction to get up and running across multiple devices. That is the power of their product. It is super easy to use and difficult to break. A lot of companies can learn from their success and focus on user experience.

by 51Cards 16y ago

JonnieCache 16y ago

>cloud computing -- that catchall phrase corporations use to describe services delivered via the Internet With this line they are streets ahead of most pure tech sites in terms of accuracy.

ch0wn 16y ago
I love Dropbox for not using this horrible term.
- nbashaw 16y ago
  Horrible term? Just because it's the catch phrase du jour doesn't mean it's totally meaningless. I get annoyed with the buzz and malapropism just as much as the next guy, but like it or not, cloud computing is a major global phenomenon.
  - zaidf 16y ago
    How? What does it mean? Any way I try to define it(other than how CNN puts it) I end up leaving out a huge chunk of cos that also claim to be into cloud computing. And I am not exCtly sure if anyone is in a position or authority to tell them "no you've got nothing to do with the cloud".
  - iamdave 16y ago
    It IS a meaningless phrase in the sense that it's being used. When I was studying network engineering, "the cloud" used to encompass the broader network environment that INCLUDED the Internet as an extension of your enterprise infrastructure. Now? It's a hyperbolic, singular phrase that is limited to using the internet as an extension of your operating system without fully explaining or at least detailing for the end user why it matters. Especially in the case of those god.awful Microsoft commercials. In their case, the way it's presented, the cloud is nothing less synonymous with social networking. Change your Facebook status from Windows? That's the cloud. Upload a picture to Flickr? That's the cloud. It's no better than that phase of 'web 2.0' that was nothing more than superficial design elements that included shiny buttons, dropping vowels and slapping the term 'beta' on everything. The web is cyclical and this is the latest cycle. While that in and of itself isn't BAD per se, it's a phrase that's come synonymous with "rockstar" and "ninja" when talking about hiring developers. A total and complete non sequitur.
  - kahawe 16y ago
    It still is a horrible term, as are most buzz words and hypes. And secondly, like it or not, it is nothing new - not even a new concept. See e.g. grid computing and what Foster et al. describe as "utility computing" in their vision; it makes cloud computing look more like a sub-category. I have the same feeling about "web 2.0" - it was merely "normal people" catching up with the tech savvy crowd on a large scale.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
FirstHopSystems 16y ago
cloud computing, renting servers/VM's. I'm going to be the Hertz of Servers! Or maybe the AirBnb of computing power!.
rakkhi 16y ago
lol so true. I was ranting about the overuse of this term a few weeks back: http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-is-it-cloud-everything-now.html http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-is-it-cloud-everythin...
Apocryphon 16y ago
Good Chevy Chase reference.

chuhnk 16y ago

I agree, this will be big for dropbox and they deserve the acknowledgement. However I think a lot of us here feel the same way, which you can deem as somewhat childish. Its the sentiment "we were here first".

taylorbuley 16y ago

Forbes wrote a story on Dropbox last summer. Interesting to compare the two takes. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0628/technology-file-sharing-dropbox-google-files-without-borders.html http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0628/technology-file-shari...

nchlswu 16y ago

There's this tunnel vision that propagates in highly specialized communities like HN. Stepping back and viewing things from the bigger picture is a skill that is highly underrated. That being said, from my personal observations, Dropbox is knocking on the door and about to have a push outside of the core tech community. This article is just another sign that Dropbox is about to make a big push.

frossie 16y ago

I think this article is perfectly valid. Of course it is. My bigger surprise is that it doesn't feature what I now think of as the ultimate Dropbox evangelising line: "It's a folder. That syncs". [ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2153046 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2153046 ]

bradleyland 16y ago

Spot on. I am incredibly optimistic about Dropbox's future. It constantly blows my mind that home users don't have any file sharing running on their network. The go-to solution is to email files to each other, even while sitting on the same network. When I learned that Dropbox supported LAN sync, I immediately started recommending it as an alternative to emailing files back and forth. Just drop files you would normally email to each other in to the Dropbox folder, and magically it will appear on the other computer. BONUS! If you make changes, they're automatically shared in the other direction. Keep it under 2 GB and you get this for free. The response I get from users is consistently that of complete astonishment. Registering for and installing Dropbox is, for many people, a more straight forward process than getting file sharing working. Dropbox scratches a very common itch.

tomazmuraus 16y ago
It "kinda" supports LAN sync. Files still first need to be transfered to the cloud first before you can sync them over LAN. At least it was like this the last time I have looked at it (a few months ago).
- phlux 16y ago
  It would be incredibly interesting if your dropbox machines all ran a bitorrent client that auto shared the syncing between them all. With logic to determine which machines are closest (in bandwidth) So that if I have my 5+ machines at home (desktops, laptops and phones, which all have the client on them) - they all see that they are on the same subnet and sync very fast between each other. Then update the cloud at the same time - in the same fashion... chop all the changes up amongst the machines. (sure, I still have a single pipe via my cable modem - but this would be helpful when I am on work lan too...) EDIT: it would be great to see an added layer of service on Dropbox such as the old Hamachi personal VPN services... Eventually - Ill be able to have a completely distributed, virtualized personal network across any machine I have an account...
  - DufusM 16y ago
    Windows Live Mesh, an equivalent Microsoft product, has the p2p sync functionality in addition to cloud sync. http://www.winsupersite.com/article/product-review/how-to-live-mesh-peer-to-peer-folder-sync.aspx http://www.winsupersite.com/article/product-review/how-to-li...

pge 16y ago

What is fascinating to me is how quickly dropbox spread outside the HN demographic. My 70 year old mother, who was as far from a techical user as one could be, asked me in early 2009 if I used dropbox so she could share some photos with me. That's when I realized they were really on to something. It was just that easy to use, and it was spreading very rapidly in non-technical communities - they had reached a user like my mother within 6 months of public release. Unbelievable, and a real testament to the simplicity and elegance of the product.

ugh 16y ago
Dropbox spread like wildfire at my small university in Germany. Not so much (or not only) among students but among Professors and TAs.
Hovertruck 16y ago
I recently got my dad's large real estate brokerage to start using Dropbox for all of their file sharing. Anyone who's ever worked in or near realty could tell you that the technology in the market is usually 5-10 years (at least) behind where it should be, so I considered this a huge accomplishment.
franze 16y ago
any product that installs growl per default on my system can not be mentioned in the same sentence with the terms "elegance".

niels 16y ago

My mom is using Dropbox. That says it all to me.

saidulislam 16y ago

well, the article is in tech section. for someone to read or write a tech article on cnn and not know about drobbox is a serious WTF

adamlashinsky 16y ago

I'm biased because I write for Fortune Magazine, but you put this perfectly. To prove your point, when I wrote about Twitter in Fortune in August, 2008, which was one of the first general business press articles about Twitter, I was well aware that 1) all the cool kids knew about it and 2) the rest of the country, Fortune's readers, did not. Here is that article, which seems a little quaint now: http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/06/technology/true_meaning_of_twitter_lashinsky.fortune/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/06/technology/true_meaning_of_t...

darrenkopp 16y ago

My Son's elementary school principal sends the PTA newsletter out via email with a link to it in his Dropbox. He couldn't figure out how to attach it to the email. I think Dropbox may be a bit more well known outside of the "techie" crowd more than you think.

luca-giovanni 16y ago

Dropbox wasn't the first such product and you can argue better ones exist out there. What they have done is make a product with little or no friction to get up and running across multiple devices. That is the power of their product. It is super easy to use and difficult to break. A lot of companies can learn from their success and focus on user experience.