15 ms·

Maxing out your Dropbox referrals (how I got 16GB for less than $10)

104 points by vrikhter 15y ago

Anti-Ratfish 15y ago
That's clever. The Forbes story mentions the use of google advertising done directly by dropbox, but noted they found it ineffective. However that probably referred to the uptake of paid subscriptions? "They toyed with advertising. “That’s what you’re supposed to do: hire a marketing guy, buy Google AdWords,” says Houston. “We sucked at it.” It was costing them $300 to hook one sign-up.". http://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2011/10/18/dropbox-the-inside-story-of-techs-hottest-startup/3/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2011/10/18/dropbo...
- sammcd 15y ago
  I bet the key difference here is that now people are much more likely to use google specifically to find dropbox.
- vrikhter 15y ago
  If you notice, a lot of my clicks were through the keyword 'dropbox'...it may not be helpful for them to be bidding on their own company name. I also think that this was a couple years ago before the intent to search for a product like this may have been lower. It's possible they would get completely different results today.
matdwyer 15y ago
Very smart, but is it against the TOS to bid directly on the trademark/company name? Often times it is. That being said, they likely will not care with you being an extremely small player and bringing them 32 new customers. Solid Hack, congrats edit - CPC are going sky high after this :-) people might want to wait for a few weeks to let others forget
- vrikhter 15y ago
  I'm not sure. I didn't bother looking at this. I spoke to someone at Dropbox about this and he's seen the numbers, he seemed to be more interested in what I did rather than reprimanding me for doing it. Thing is that everyone maxes out at some point. You can only have so many referrals. Once you give them 32 new customers, you stop running the ads and move on with life. Also, you're just re-routing the new customers. They would have signed up potentially on their own (as you can see the multitude of clicks from the keyword 'dropbox'), so I imagine that could be the only problem for them - acquiring customers by having to give you extra space that would have signed up without having to give anyone extra space.
  - matdwyer 15y ago
    Agreed - I'm not saying they'd stop you (you're basically doing their marketing job!), just pointing out that it could be a closed up loophole. For example, the more people that are bidding that, the higher dropbox has to pay for their own ad buys... i.e. if everyone is doing this, they either stop doing the ads themselves (unlikely, as they can't monitor) or stop the practice so they can control their trademark searches (for optimization, etc) Anyway, not saying what you did was bad - I think it is really cool!
- calbear81 15y ago
  There are protected trademarks that are registered with Google that are protected in their system but even then, I believe the rule is you cannot use the trademark in your ad copy but you can still target the term in you list. In many mature industries, the major players have reciprocal agreements in place with their suppliers and even with competitors to not bid on branded/trademarked terms.
  - matdwyer 15y ago
    I was referring more to affiliate agreements - i.e. I have an affiliate account with Blurb, and I'm bound by a few technicalities like not bidding on Blurb, not writing blurb or posing as blurb on facebook/twitter, etc. If I break that they basically take all my affiliate $$. Not fun! This is obviously more consumer facing and not really a big deal, so I don't think it would be a problem.
jemeshsu 15y ago
Box.net running a promotion till Dec 2, download Box.Net iOS app, sign in or register new account, and get 50GB free.
- speedracr 15y ago
  Yes, unfortunately you don't get access to the desktop application unless you sign up for a premium plan. Also, the file size limits for upload are lower unless you are a premium user. So maybe don't bother, if Dropbox works for you in the free version.
  - cmer 15y ago
    There's a way around it. It's just WebDav. Here's how to do it on Ubuntu, it works just as well on my Mac: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/how-to-access-your-boxnet-account-from-ubuntu-the-easy-way/ http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/how-to-access-your-box...
    - insanecanadian 15y ago
      Yeah, this really is the best route in most cases anyway. Besides, it's one less thing that you are stuck installing.
nimblegorilla 15y ago
Pretty cool. The cynic in me wonders if this could be a clever viral campaign by dropbox to get cheap online ads.
- Zhenya 15y ago
  Definitely not a viral campaign. I know this guy personally and he is a clever little beaver.
  - ohashi 15y ago
    I am amazed people don't have friends to push it to. I upped my storage by just suggesting it to friends and family.
    - bockris 15y ago
      I invited some colleagues but Dropbox denied the referrals because they said it came from the same computer. It came from the same IP (our corp firewall). I didn't feel like fighting it because I'm under my limit anyway.
pieter 15y ago
Might be easier to run it through Mechanical Turk
- vrikhter 15y ago
  Didn't think of that.
- pepijndevos 15y ago
  Huh? How? I googled it, and it seems to be something about freelance work?
  - AdamTReineke 15y ago
    You pay people to perform small tasks: in this case, join Dropbox.
  - MichaelApproved 15y ago
    Think of it as micro-jobs. It's a service that allows you to post small tasks for a small amount of money. The pay ranges from anywhere from a few pennies to a few dollars and takes anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to complete. I believe the parent was suggesting you post the job requesting people signup for and install Dropbox. It's a flawed idea since it violates both service's TOS.
    - MaxGabriel 15y ago
      In fact, 7 of the 9 specific examples of prohibited activity [1] would fit this task "HITs requiring disclosure of the Worker's identity or e-mail address, either directly or indirectly HITs requiring registration at another website or group HITs that directly or indirectly promote a site, service, or opinion HITs that violate the terms and conditions of an activity or website (for instance asking Workers to vote for something) HITs that generate "referred" site visits or click-through traffic HITs that ask Workers to take action to manipulate a website's behavior or results HITs that require Workers to download software" [1] https://www.mturk.com/mturk/help?helpPage=policies https://www.mturk.com/mturk/help?helpPage=policies
msinghai 15y ago
I guess shelling out 5$ in mturk, could more effectively do the job, in less time.
BrokenDroid 15y ago
post your invite-link here and I'll put it in www.dropbox.it for free.
- brlewis 15y ago
  http://db.tt/smEqOZC5 http://db.tt/smEqOZC5 (actually my wife's)
- gallamine 15y ago
  http://db.tt/Plnnb3t http://db.tt/Plnnb3t What is the .it domain for?
- BrokenDroid 15y ago
  @gallamine, @brlewis done. "it" stands for "italy"
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - ebw122 15y ago
    http://db.tt/d168Jff http://db.tt/d168Jff thanks!
- wingspan 15y ago
  http://db.tt/b2bwCad http://db.tt/b2bwCad Thanks, saves the trouble of starting a campaign ;)
- readdit 15y ago
  Here's mine http://db.tt/Vz8tAuz http://db.tt/Vz8tAuz, thanks!
- tdurden 15y ago
  http://db.tt/mSorn5J http://db.tt/mSorn5J
- rb2k_ 15y ago
  http://db.tt/Gb9BQWeS http://db.tt/Gb9BQWeS thanks!
jayfehr 15y ago
Reddit used to be big on karma parties, so when Dropbox first increased the limit from 5GB to 10GB I figured I would try a Dropbox party. I posted my referral link and encouraged others to do the same. A couple hours later I had maxed out my referrals. Since then I've seen others try, and at first they were well received but now they get downvoted pretty quickly. Anyway, I guess my point is to try and see if other sites you visit will allow threads to share Dropbox invites. It is spam but since the referrals benefit both the invitee and inviter evenly some forums may allow it. edit: I see there are some comments in thread already doing just that.
aresant 15y ago
Spend your time and money to "earn" the pleasure of being more engaged & reliant on DropBox. I bet a very high percentage of people with high referrals wind up spending ~$100/yr after burning through that 16gig. Not trying to be a cynic - fun hack, but don't under value your time unless you want to use this as a learning experience :)
- jonmc12 15y ago
  Well, you are basically saying don't waste time referring people to Dropbox given their incentives. I did this trick a few weeks ago when Vladik initially posted. Cost me $13 in total (+ about 10min of my time) to go from 2.8GB to 10.8GB. Followed instructions to a 't'. Although the 2nd day I bumped my min up to $0.10 - got click-throughs a lot faster, but I would recommend staying at the $.05 max. Pure ROI, say I could have billed $30 for my 10min + $13 on adwords - then amortize over 4 years (assuming thats how long I would have my free 8GB with dropbox). I get my 8GB for $.90/month. Its no steal, but that is a solid deal. Of course, now that this technique hit HN, I would expect the adword prices to go up. Great hack Vladik! Thanks again for sharing.
  - vrikhter 15y ago
    Thanks Jon! I imagine the prices would go up only temporarily.
MikeGrace 15y ago
This is awesome! Haha! Really impressive what can be done with a bit of advertising and some good tools. Reminds me of 2 articles I read a while ago. 1. Advertiser/marketer got his ads in front of the people he wanted to interview with: http://mashable.com/2010/05/13/job-google-ad-words/ http://mashable.com/2010/05/13/job-google-ad-words/ 2. Reporter got inside information on a murder through her blog and Google analytics: http://lauraamico.tumblr.com/post/11316313807/online-investigative-journalism-more-on-reporting http://lauraamico.tumblr.com/post/11316313807/online-investi...
dageshi 15y ago
Erm, am I missing something, is there a reason why dropbox seems to be inhabiting the top of hackernews today? Is there an IPO in the offing that I've missed? Why the sudden PR offensive?
- Talon 15y ago
  This Forbes article, mostly: http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fvictoriabarret%2F2011%2F10%2F18%2Fdropbox-the-inside-story-of-techs-hottest-startup%2F&format= http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%...
xutopia 15y ago
I did something really similar than this and only told my close friends about it because I didn't want everyone doing it and running the fun for us. For the record my adword fu isn't as good as this person and I spent a little over 20$ to max out my free space.
- vrikhter 15y ago
  When did you run the ads? They may have just gotten more expensive over time. I ran these a while ago, but only blogged about it recently.
RyanKearney 15y ago
And here's how I got 32GB for about $1 http://blog.ryankearney.com/2011/05/how-to-quickly-reach-your-32gb-bonus-space-for-dropbox-for-next-to-nothing/ http://blog.ryankearney.com/2011/05/how-to-quickly-reach-you...
Tossrock 15y ago
I read that you can do it yourself by instantiating a VM and installing dropbox there, rinse+repeat till you're maxed out.
rhplus 15y ago
SkyDrive coupled with webdav and your favorite sync tool will get you 25GB free: http://www.google.com/search?q=skydrive+webdav+25GB http://www.google.com/search?q=skydrive+webdav+25GB And for completeness, here's a bunch of other file-syncing services: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_hosting_services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_hosting_serv...
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
namank 15y ago
Getting a user to buy advertising for them? See now thats why Dropbox is the hottest thing right now!
alsocasey 15y ago
You used to be able to create new accounts using your own referral link and virtualized systems (via VirtualBox) + a trash email account. That's how I maxed my free account at any rate.
suivix 15y ago
You sound like the phone phreakers of the 80s who thought they were the coolest people for getting free phone calls and had to tell just everyone.
- Zhenya 15y ago
  Sounds like you're mad because you paid for phone calls.
arikrak 15y ago
If you haven't used Adwords yet, Google has many free $75 and $100 coupons floating around online, so it shouldn't cost anything. I wonder if its fair to Dropbox though if you target people who would have signed up anyways. Also, if you need so much space, there are cheaper alternatives.
francescolaffi 15y ago
Students can go to https://www.dropbox.com/edu https://www.dropbox.com/edu and get double referrals (500mb) and double referral limit(16GB), is also retroactive!
Pickels 15y ago
I heard from a friend Poker sites got referrals too. Wonder if you can use this technique for those sites.

104 points by vrikhter 15y ago

That's clever. The Forbes story mentions the use of google advertising done directly by dropbox, but noted they found it ineffective. However that probably referred to the uptake of paid subscriptions? "They toyed with advertising. “That’s what you’re supposed to do: hire a marketing guy, buy Google AdWords,” says Houston. “We sucked at it.” It was costing them $300 to hook one sign-up.". http://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2011/10/18/dropbox-the-inside-story-of-techs-hottest-startup/3/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2011/10/18/dropbo...

sammcd 15y ago
I bet the key difference here is that now people are much more likely to use google specifically to find dropbox.
vrikhter 15y ago
If you notice, a lot of my clicks were through the keyword 'dropbox'...it may not be helpful for them to be bidding on their own company name. I also think that this was a couple years ago before the intent to search for a product like this may have been lower. It's possible they would get completely different results today.

matdwyer 15y ago

Very smart, but is it against the TOS to bid directly on the trademark/company name? Often times it is. That being said, they likely will not care with you being an extremely small player and bringing them 32 new customers. Solid Hack, congrats edit - CPC are going sky high after this :-) people might want to wait for a few weeks to let others forget

vrikhter 15y ago
I'm not sure. I didn't bother looking at this. I spoke to someone at Dropbox about this and he's seen the numbers, he seemed to be more interested in what I did rather than reprimanding me for doing it. Thing is that everyone maxes out at some point. You can only have so many referrals. Once you give them 32 new customers, you stop running the ads and move on with life. Also, you're just re-routing the new customers. They would have signed up potentially on their own (as you can see the multitude of clicks from the keyword 'dropbox'), so I imagine that could be the only problem for them - acquiring customers by having to give you extra space that would have signed up without having to give anyone extra space.
- matdwyer 15y ago
  Agreed - I'm not saying they'd stop you (you're basically doing their marketing job!), just pointing out that it could be a closed up loophole. For example, the more people that are bidding that, the higher dropbox has to pay for their own ad buys... i.e. if everyone is doing this, they either stop doing the ads themselves (unlikely, as they can't monitor) or stop the practice so they can control their trademark searches (for optimization, etc) Anyway, not saying what you did was bad - I think it is really cool!
calbear81 15y ago
There are protected trademarks that are registered with Google that are protected in their system but even then, I believe the rule is you cannot use the trademark in your ad copy but you can still target the term in you list. In many mature industries, the major players have reciprocal agreements in place with their suppliers and even with competitors to not bid on branded/trademarked terms.
- matdwyer 15y ago
  I was referring more to affiliate agreements - i.e. I have an affiliate account with Blurb, and I'm bound by a few technicalities like not bidding on Blurb, not writing blurb or posing as blurb on facebook/twitter, etc. If I break that they basically take all my affiliate $$. Not fun! This is obviously more consumer facing and not really a big deal, so I don't think it would be a problem.

jemeshsu 15y ago

Box.net running a promotion till Dec 2, download Box.Net iOS app, sign in or register new account, and get 50GB free.

speedracr 15y ago
Yes, unfortunately you don't get access to the desktop application unless you sign up for a premium plan. Also, the file size limits for upload are lower unless you are a premium user. So maybe don't bother, if Dropbox works for you in the free version.
- cmer 15y ago
  There's a way around it. It's just WebDav. Here's how to do it on Ubuntu, it works just as well on my Mac: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/how-to-access-your-boxnet-account-from-ubuntu-the-easy-way/ http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/how-to-access-your-box...
  - insanecanadian 15y ago
    Yeah, this really is the best route in most cases anyway. Besides, it's one less thing that you are stuck installing.

nimblegorilla 15y ago

Pretty cool. The cynic in me wonders if this could be a clever viral campaign by dropbox to get cheap online ads.

Zhenya 15y ago
Definitely not a viral campaign. I know this guy personally and he is a clever little beaver.
- ohashi 15y ago
  I am amazed people don't have friends to push it to. I upped my storage by just suggesting it to friends and family.
  - bockris 15y ago
    I invited some colleagues but Dropbox denied the referrals because they said it came from the same computer. It came from the same IP (our corp firewall). I didn't feel like fighting it because I'm under my limit anyway.

pieter 15y ago

Might be easier to run it through Mechanical Turk

vrikhter 15y ago
Didn't think of that.
pepijndevos 15y ago
Huh? How? I googled it, and it seems to be something about freelance work?
- AdamTReineke 15y ago
  You pay people to perform small tasks: in this case, join Dropbox.
- MichaelApproved 15y ago
  Think of it as micro-jobs. It's a service that allows you to post small tasks for a small amount of money. The pay ranges from anywhere from a few pennies to a few dollars and takes anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to complete. I believe the parent was suggesting you post the job requesting people signup for and install Dropbox. It's a flawed idea since it violates both service's TOS.
  - MaxGabriel 15y ago
    In fact, 7 of the 9 specific examples of prohibited activity [1] would fit this task "HITs requiring disclosure of the Worker's identity or e-mail address, either directly or indirectly HITs requiring registration at another website or group HITs that directly or indirectly promote a site, service, or opinion HITs that violate the terms and conditions of an activity or website (for instance asking Workers to vote for something) HITs that generate "referred" site visits or click-through traffic HITs that ask Workers to take action to manipulate a website's behavior or results HITs that require Workers to download software" [1] https://www.mturk.com/mturk/help?helpPage=policies https://www.mturk.com/mturk/help?helpPage=policies

msinghai 15y ago

I guess shelling out 5$ in mturk, could more effectively do the job, in less time.

BrokenDroid 15y ago

post your invite-link here and I'll put it in www.dropbox.it for free.

brlewis 15y ago
http://db.tt/smEqOZC5 http://db.tt/smEqOZC5 (actually my wife's)
gallamine 15y ago
http://db.tt/Plnnb3t http://db.tt/Plnnb3t What is the .it domain for?
BrokenDroid 15y ago
@gallamine, @brlewis done. "it" stands for "italy"
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- ebw122 15y ago
  http://db.tt/d168Jff http://db.tt/d168Jff thanks!
wingspan 15y ago
http://db.tt/b2bwCad http://db.tt/b2bwCad Thanks, saves the trouble of starting a campaign ;)
readdit 15y ago
Here's mine http://db.tt/Vz8tAuz http://db.tt/Vz8tAuz, thanks!
tdurden 15y ago
http://db.tt/mSorn5J http://db.tt/mSorn5J
rb2k_ 15y ago
http://db.tt/Gb9BQWeS http://db.tt/Gb9BQWeS thanks!

jayfehr 15y ago

Reddit used to be big on karma parties, so when Dropbox first increased the limit from 5GB to 10GB I figured I would try a Dropbox party. I posted my referral link and encouraged others to do the same. A couple hours later I had maxed out my referrals. Since then I've seen others try, and at first they were well received but now they get downvoted pretty quickly. Anyway, I guess my point is to try and see if other sites you visit will allow threads to share Dropbox invites. It is spam but since the referrals benefit both the invitee and inviter evenly some forums may allow it. edit: I see there are some comments in thread already doing just that.

aresant 15y ago

Spend your time and money to "earn" the pleasure of being more engaged & reliant on DropBox. I bet a very high percentage of people with high referrals wind up spending ~$100/yr after burning through that 16gig. Not trying to be a cynic - fun hack, but don't under value your time unless you want to use this as a learning experience :)

jonmc12 15y ago
Well, you are basically saying don't waste time referring people to Dropbox given their incentives. I did this trick a few weeks ago when Vladik initially posted. Cost me $13 in total (+ about 10min of my time) to go from 2.8GB to 10.8GB. Followed instructions to a 't'. Although the 2nd day I bumped my min up to $0.10 - got click-throughs a lot faster, but I would recommend staying at the $.05 max. Pure ROI, say I could have billed $30 for my 10min + $13 on adwords - then amortize over 4 years (assuming thats how long I would have my free 8GB with dropbox). I get my 8GB for $.90/month. Its no steal, but that is a solid deal. Of course, now that this technique hit HN, I would expect the adword prices to go up. Great hack Vladik! Thanks again for sharing.
- vrikhter 15y ago
  Thanks Jon! I imagine the prices would go up only temporarily.

MikeGrace 15y ago

This is awesome! Haha! Really impressive what can be done with a bit of advertising and some good tools. Reminds me of 2 articles I read a while ago. 1. Advertiser/marketer got his ads in front of the people he wanted to interview with: http://mashable.com/2010/05/13/job-google-ad-words/ http://mashable.com/2010/05/13/job-google-ad-words/ 2. Reporter got inside information on a murder through her blog and Google analytics: http://lauraamico.tumblr.com/post/11316313807/online-investigative-journalism-more-on-reporting http://lauraamico.tumblr.com/post/11316313807/online-investi...

dageshi 15y ago

Erm, am I missing something, is there a reason why dropbox seems to be inhabiting the top of hackernews today? Is there an IPO in the offing that I've missed? Why the sudden PR offensive?

Talon 15y ago
This Forbes article, mostly: http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fvictoriabarret%2F2011%2F10%2F18%2Fdropbox-the-inside-story-of-techs-hottest-startup%2F&format= http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%...

xutopia 15y ago

I did something really similar than this and only told my close friends about it because I didn't want everyone doing it and running the fun for us. For the record my adword fu isn't as good as this person and I spent a little over 20$ to max out my free space.

vrikhter 15y ago
When did you run the ads? They may have just gotten more expensive over time. I ran these a while ago, but only blogged about it recently.

RyanKearney 15y ago

And here's how I got 32GB for about $1 http://blog.ryankearney.com/2011/05/how-to-quickly-reach-your-32gb-bonus-space-for-dropbox-for-next-to-nothing/ http://blog.ryankearney.com/2011/05/how-to-quickly-reach-you...

Tossrock 15y ago

I read that you can do it yourself by instantiating a VM and installing dropbox there, rinse+repeat till you're maxed out.

rhplus 15y ago

SkyDrive coupled with webdav and your favorite sync tool will get you 25GB free: http://www.google.com/search?q=skydrive+webdav+25GB http://www.google.com/search?q=skydrive+webdav+25GB And for completeness, here's a bunch of other file-syncing services: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_hosting_services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_hosting_serv...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

namank 15y ago

Getting a user to buy advertising for them? See now thats why Dropbox is the hottest thing right now!

alsocasey 15y ago

You used to be able to create new accounts using your own referral link and virtualized systems (via VirtualBox) + a trash email account. That's how I maxed my free account at any rate.

suivix 15y ago

You sound like the phone phreakers of the 80s who thought they were the coolest people for getting free phone calls and had to tell just everyone.

Zhenya 15y ago
Sounds like you're mad because you paid for phone calls.

arikrak 15y ago

If you haven't used Adwords yet, Google has many free $75 and $100 coupons floating around online, so it shouldn't cost anything. I wonder if its fair to Dropbox though if you target people who would have signed up anyways. Also, if you need so much space, there are cheaper alternatives.

francescolaffi 15y ago

Students can go to https://www.dropbox.com/edu https://www.dropbox.com/edu and get double referrals (500mb) and double referral limit(16GB), is also retroactive!

Pickels 15y ago

I heard from a friend Poker sites got referrals too. Wonder if you can use this technique for those sites.