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DropBox grows like weed. Reaches 2 million users.
- spicyj 17y agoHoly crap. That's about 5000 new users per day.
- huhtenberg 17y agoWhile impressive, the number is actuallu quite meaningless until they disclose how many of these become active users.
- breck 17y agonearly 1 million, as it says in the article.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- greyman 17y agoI would like to ask, if someone can compare DropBox with Live Mesh. I tried DropBox in the past, but at that time it could not get over our company firewall. I use now Mesh with satisfaction, and just comparing the features, in Mesh I have 5GB web storage (while can sync also over 5GB limit, in which case it will just not be stored on the cloud), and it also has remote desktop. Now the question is if there is some reason for me to re-evalute Dropbox again.
- MikeW 17y agoI'll take a stab at it as I've used both. Or rather I've used both for actual work. DropBox wins for me because it can access their servers through our firewall (which only allows HTTP/S access to less than 5 ports). Live Mesh could not do this. I found dropbox a tiny barrier to entry. It was so unobtrusive. Live Mesh pops up stuff on startup, complains that it can't access the internet. Etc. Dropbox just stays silent and waits file locks are released and internet connectivity returns. Getting at my files online is SO much easier with DropBox, ESPECIALLY now since they have the new UI. It's fast, Mesh isn't. I've never used the remote desktop feature so I can't comment. Oh and the feature I use nearly daily is the Public folder where I just save a file in there, right click in Explorer, copy the public URL and give them the URL rather than worry if the email client can support a 10MB file. Brilliant, much faster than slow Messenger file transfers! I don't believe Mesh has this ability. Anyway, DropBox is a simple enough concept and I feel they refined it so well that anyone can use it. Mesh is just complex and has way too much UI stuff going on. I'm still well under the 2GB limit but have a 50GB Pro account (for now anyway) - just waiting for the selective sync feature now
- icey 17y agoWow, congrats on the huge growth dhouston
- telemachos 17y agoI'm one of the 1 million users whose accounts are dormant. I love the product, but it bothers me that it's not open source. (Not their problem or anyone else's, but I prefer not to use close-source software if I can help it.) Also, after I don't know how long, the whole "the API is around the corner" thing began to feel like a shell game.
- unalone 17y agoIt's two years old. Give them time, they're evolving their site constantly. Also, I don't think you know what a shell game is. I love the product, but it bothers me that it's not open source. (Not their problem or anyone else's, but I prefer not to use close-source software if I can help it.) They created one of the fastest and best methods of syncing there is, maybe the best one if simply being intuitive counts. They make their money by licensing it to you. How would you take that and open-source it without killing dhouston's method of making a living? Also: What's this about not liking closed-source? That's like saying you dislike songs that you can't download as individual tracks. Maybe it's cool that some things are broken down and easy to tinker with, but it's silly to turn that into disliking the ones you can't break.
- telemachos 17y ago> Also, I don't think you know what a shell game is. If my imprecision bothers you, feel free to s/con game/shell game/. >Also: What's this about not liking closed-source? That's like saying you dislike songs that you can't download as individual tracks. Maybe it's cool that some things are broken down and easy to tinker with, but it's silly to turn that into disliking the ones you can't break. I don't think you know what the value of free and open software is. It has nothing to do with wanting things "you can break." I have no idea how you make that leap (open source == breakable?). I would add that a closed source application built (as far as I've read) on open source pieces (SVN? Python? Rsync?) is especially off-putting to me. To clarify one other point. Ubuntu has already reverse-engineered Dropbox (as Ubuntu One), so if Dropbox's profit relies on their having the sole access to the magic formula, it's already too late. Anything can be (and generally will be) reverse engineered. I don't think that closing off the source is a royal road to success.
- chaosmachine 17y agoI'd love to know what percentage of their new users come from their affiliate program: https://www.getdropbox.com/affiliates https://www.getdropbox.com/affiliates
- daok 17y agoAnyone can explain me how this business can do money other than having some plan that cost some money. I suppose that most of the account are "free" one. I have hard time to understand how it can be profitable to run.
- unalone 17y agoThey charge money for more space. That's exactly how they make money. So what else are you asking?
- joez 17y agoI have to agree it was a badly worded question. I think the OP has bandwidth concerns. Dropbox could charge based off an upload metric similar to Evernote (which gives 40 MB of transfer free a month). http://www.evernote.com/about/premium/ http://www.evernote.com/about/premium/ While that model more closely aligns to bandwidth costs, I think dropbox is in a different market. For one, Dropbox is competing with external hard drives. It's easier to understand the value proposition when you can compare based on storage. I sure as hell have no idea how much 40 MB is in terms of use. I do some word docs and some pictures. If I do 5 saves an hour, averaging 10 kb in size and I work for 40 hours a week, is 40 MB enough storage?
- eli 17y agoLimits based on some ineffable-to-the-layman bandwidth usage numbers totally break the "it just works" factor
- unalone 17y agoThough I must admit, every time I share something with a friend in a public folder I worry that I'll trip up some "amount of shit you can give people" limit and end up banned.
- The_Lost_Hacker 17y agoWell, he was specifically asking what ELSE they can do to make money. The answer is nothing, for now, because they don't need to. He can't grasp the fact that they actually make enough money to employ 16 people.
- newsdog 17y agoI'm a customer. it's indispensable.
- ricardo 17y agoI'm not a customer yet but I agree on it being indispensable. It'll be an easy decision to pay once I run out of disk space. There aren't many products which I actively promote to my friends, but dropbox is one of them (the extra space for referrals helps too).
- jraines 17y agoAgreed. I actually got introduced to it by a client who you wouldn't expect to use a startup's product. Fastest I've ever gone from free account to paying customer.
- pclark 17y agogreat services attract tons of users, who'da thought it.
- joez 17y agoNot to turn this into a huge circle jerk but for me it's the simplicity. I can recommend it to my friends without worrying that they will ask me to troubleshoot later. Edit: And I am sure it is the same for other people. The simplicity adds to their ability to spread like "weeds" because people aren't afraid to recommending it.
- pclark 17y agoif there was one service that deserved a good circle jerk it'd be dropbox, though.
- palish 17y agoIt's true. My friend John Ratcliff is a very "old-school" hacker, very set in his ways, but when he discovered Dropbox by accident even he jumped all over it. http://jratcliffscarab.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html http://jratcliffscarab.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
- s3graham 17y agoAny info on how many are at $10 and $20? I love it, but I'm a freeloader.
- mrshoe 17y agoYou know what's really cool about this? Microsoft and Apple have both taken stabs at this problem multiple times. The companies that make the operating systems on about 99% of PCs have both tried this. They've had some success at it, but it's never been a killer app or a feature that people rave about. Knowing that, dhouston still created DropBox. He did a fantastic job. He knocked it out of the park. Now 2 million people have used the thing and he's well on his way to building a very successful business with it. Don't let the big guys scare you.
- Elepsis 17y agoI suspect people underestimate how successful Microsoft and Apple have been with their competitive services.
- huhtenberg 17y agoCare to elaborate ?
- dpcan 17y agoI think I've created 2 accounts there before to check it out but never used it again. So, if you're counting "active users" it's only 1,999,998 The app looks great, I just have no use for it. I'm just saying, call it like it is. This is an account-tally, not an "user" count. "User" counts implies "use" - but this may not be the truth.
- jonknee 17y agoSomeone didn't read the article: "Of those, Dropbox has almost one million users that are active." It was hidden in the first paragraph though.
- huhtenberg 17y agoIt'd be nice to know if idle accounts that still connect to the service are included in the count. I am guessing that they are as 50% user retention rate is an atypically (very) high number.
- andrew1 17y agoMaybe it's an atypically good product.
- wavesplash 17y agoDrew and the crew deserve the success. I'm a very happy user. The file sync is near instantaneous. If I'm working on a document with someone, by the time they tell me they've saved it in the IM window, it's already transferring to my local dropbox.
- GiraffeNecktie 17y agoFor someone working regularly from multiple computers running both Windows and Linux, Dropbox has been a lifesaver. Good on them.
- mahmud 17y agoHow about a working CLI client now? the python one is broken.
- pxlpshr 17y agoDropbox is a brilliant service that's so well executed it makes baby jesus cry. That's how much I love it. (paying customer)
- fjabre 17y agoCurious: has anyone done anything similar using S3 as a backend?
- mbrubeck 17y agoYes. Dropbox uses S3 as its backend. (And Jungle Disk is a somewhat similar product that lets you use your own S3 account.)
- kvs 17y agoOne thing I'd prefer is dropbox using _my_ S3 buckets so irony rely on them only for syncing. What are the economics of such an approach?
- mhansen 17y agoHow many of dropbox's paying customers have their own S3 buckets?
- jamesbritt 17y agoI'm curious if anyone is using this on KDE3? The site refers to "Linux" as if it had some single monolithic desktop manager, but what they really mean is "running Nautilus", a GNOME file manager. I'm reluctant to just install nautilus for fear of desktop side effects.
- mziulu 17y agoI'm using it on Slack's KDE4 and it opens Dolphin by default. Once I had it to open the folder with Firefox, dunno how though, probably a bug.
- telemachos 17y agoI got it working just fine on a Debian machine (Lenny) running Openbox without Nautilus. You can do the installation purely from the command-line and run the daemon in the same way. The one downside is that Nautilus used to be the only way to get visual notitification of syncs, etc. I got syncing just fine, but nothing on a panel or the like. I haven't used Dropbox in some time though, so someone may have figured out a hack to integrate the tool with KDE's panel in some way. Their forums are pretty active with a variety of Linux distros and desktop environments. Search there.
- coffeemug 17y agoI had a chance to briefly chat with Drew, and he's an extremely sharp, knowledgeable, and helpful guy. I suppose he might not have been that good when he started Dropbox, but he's certainly one of the smartest people I've had the privilege of talking to in the Valley. If you believe that A players hire A players, the whole Dropbox team must be top notch. They deserve every bit of the success.
- quizbiz 17y agois the analogy in the title really necessary?
- pbhjpbhj 17y agoIt does add a little - it's clearly not viral growth, that would be millions overnight. Weeds self-seed and grow steadily overtime getting larger as resources allow - it seems to be a fine analogy. Necessary, no; worthy, yes.
- axod 17y agoThey should do all they can to buy http://dropbox.com/ http://dropbox.com/
- barrkel 17y agoMy GF has used both DropBox and SugarSync extensively, and the vote goes to SugarSync - more flexible in what's shared.
- theklub 17y agoCount down to google acquisition?
- vdm 17y agoYou know, it would make me buy Google Apps Premier edition, even though I don't need its other benefits.
- tom_b 17y agoAnything that scores me points with my wife gets my $$$. When my wife called me and said, "Honey, I love dropbox" I figured this team had hit a homerun. I'd been pushing a backup/network solution for her for a few years because of various harddrive failures and file loss debacles, but only dropbox dropped in and "just worked" for her - she's the perfect candidate for dropbox, moving between multiple laptops and computer labs for document editing and statistics programming. Good luck to the team there and many thanks. I hope you all get filthy rich. Seriously.
- DanLar75 17y agoFor those looking for an alternative to dropbox I can recommend SpiderOak (https://spideroak.com https://spideroak.com) - Unlimited number of devices (computers) in one account - Slightly cheaper - Windows, Mac and Linux client - 100% Zero-knowledge security and client side encryption key creation. My 5 cent
- akrymski 17y agoGreat achievement. Some may argue dropbox is a feature rather than a business, something Windows / OS X should do out of the box. And indeed they should, but they don't (not nearly that well anyway). But as soon as the success of DropBox is evident, I think we can expect the next version of OS X to have a "dropbox" that's part of their mobile me strategy, and MS to finally push out this feature aggressively. After all they are both after recurring revenues of this sort. Let's hope they buy DropBox before then.
- akrymski 17y agoBTW I've signed up cause I've lost my USB stick =) still prefer USB sticks as upload speeds are slow here.
- wormwood123 17y agoI'm just gonna drop my referral link here: https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTIzNDY3NzU5 https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTIzNDY3NzU5 If you use that both you and I will get 250mb of extra space, so it's a win-win! =)