Drop.io Archive

This morning I headed down to DUMBO (a neighborhood in Brooklyn) to check out the new Drop.io office. It’s a great loft-style space that looks like the team can easily expand past their current headcount.

CN was the first media outlet to cover Drop.io on their alpha launch last November. Drop.io is a private, discreet file sharing service. This means you can share files with only the people you want. The most simple example is a designer who wants to show his or her sketches to their client without putting them on a public file server. Drop.io handles nearly all media types and offers a variety of methods to view the files including rss, mobile and a new embed option for videos.

Drop.io uses a variety of Amazon tools on the backend and in the interview below they note that Drop.io users have already stored several terabytes of data. What makes this even more significant is that Drop.io expires data — so the reported figures are "active" stats.

One of the issues Drop.io faces is gaining brand awareness. Drop.io may have trouble getting brand recognition becuase its content is all private unlike other file sharing services which promote themselves as people share the content stored on the service.

Darshan and Sam have provided CN with ten free premium upgrade codes. Leave your information in the comments (do not leave your email in the comment, just in the email field) and I will send you an upgrade code.

Check out my interview below with co-founders Darshan Somashekar and Sam Lessin.

Last night at a secret location in NYC, file sharing service Drop.io held their launch party. The biggest names in NYC tech came out for the party which was held on the snowiest day in NYC in years. Mashable’s Pete Cashmore and CNET’s Caroline McCarthy were part of the all-star jounalists to show up as well. There is a drop setup for the party with photos, videos and other media. Check out all of our previous drop.io coverage.

Here are some photos from the evening (all photos):

Huge banner outside at the secret location

The Drop.io Team – love the 80s Sheena Easton headbands!

McCarthy, Cashmore and some Random Dude

Day #4 in the Ten Days of Holiday Gifts comes to you via Drop.io. Drop.io is a very simple, no-signup, private media sharing site that can be used for all types of things – posting resumes, sharing photos, or collaborating on business documents. Check out our coverage of Drop.io for more information about how it works.

Drop.io is also announcing the launch of their upload widget service today. Drop.io wants users to take its widget and "drop" them all over the web – creating little tunnels all across the web to allow users to share files privately with each other. Blogger, MySpace, Wordpress, etc. are supported (Facebook isn’t yet but they say that’s coming soon). This could be a great way for bands to allow fans to send photos in, recruiters to collect resumes, or friends to send media between each other.

Just for readers of CenterNetworks, Drop.io is offering 15 Free Drop Upgrades! The first 15 of ya’all to send in a request using our contact form gets them! Be quick!

(I’ve turned off comments on this post to avoid any entry confusion and I will note this post once the codes are gone.)

Here is the view widget:

drop.io: simple private sharing

I’d like to thank each one of you for your loyalty and patronage over the past year. I’ve got a full recap coming but it’s simply amazing where CN has grown and of course it’s thanks to each of you. Like the Wine Man says, "It’s a lot of you and a little of me and together we are changing the tech industry." (I tweaked it a bit).

With that said, I’ve been working hard to line up a variety of exclusive Holiday Gifts for you. Over the next ten business days, there will be one gift each day. From service discounts, to premium beta access to free conference passes, we’ve got something you will like!

In the graphic below, you will note one slot with ??? in it. That’s because I have left one slot open. I’d like your feedback on who should fill that slot and I will go after them! Leave your ideas in the comments. And if you have a service to offer as a treat, contact us. It can’t be a free service is the only rule.

Here’s who’s participating — pretty impressive lineup!:

• OurStage – 12 free song downloads – get holiday gift
• Compete – free credits towards the search analytics tool – get holiday gift
• Clicky – two free pro accounts – get holiday gift
• Freshbooks – 30% off new subscriptions – get holiday gift
• TapeFailure – 40% off new subscriptions – get holiday gift
• Drop.io – free premium upgrade codes – get holiday gift
• CrazyEgg – Some pro accounts – get holiday gift
• Future of Web Apps in Miami – 5 free conference passes – get holiday gift
• CenterNetworks – 50% off job board posts – get holiday gift

Update: Please DO NOT signup for TapeFailure – the site will be closing at the end of this month :(

You won’t know which Holiday Gift will come which day nor what time – so be on the lookout! Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to All!

Some NYC funding news this Monday evening. Yodle has picked up $12 million and Drop.io picked up $1.2 million.

Yodle

Yodle has raised a second round of financing to the tune of $12 million led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, with existing investor Bessemer Venture Partners also participating in the round. Yodle helps small businesses purchase online ads. They will use the funding for a national rollout. Yodle helps connect customers with small businesses by taking out the pain of handling campaigns on their own.

From their release, "Today, 63 percent of consumers primarily search for local businesses online; Yodle is tapping this enormous advertising market to drive customers to businesses in a way that has never been done before.  With Draper Fisher Jurvetson’s financing, we will be able to complete our national rollout and offer our services to small businesses across the country,” said Court Cunningham, CEO of Yodle."

Drop.io

Drop.io has raised a Series A round of financing to the tune of $1.25 million led by RRE Ventures. Mashable has the details which include two new board announcements: Managing Partner Stuart Ellman of RRE Ventures and Andrew Weinreich, CEO of MeetMoi.

Check out our launch review of Drop.io from earlier this month.

A new file and media sharing service out of NYC called Drop.io launched its alpha late last week. It is decidedly different in approach than the other file sharing services currently available. I sat down with founders Darshan Somashekar and Sam Lessin at their office in NYC.

I asked for an overview of the Drop.io service and Darshan replied with, "with Drop.io we stripped media sharing online to its essence. We took out personal registration and the entire concept of ‘accounts’. There is no search, and no network. In as little as two clicks you can create as many separate drops as you want, making it the easiest way for people to privately upload and share virtually anything with just the people they want." I think of it as semi-private to private sharing as the only way to find a drop is to know the specific URL and, if set, password.

There are many applications for Drop.io. The one that immediately stands out to me is work collaboration space. Need to show files to a client? Use Drop.io. Or if you are working in a team and need to share files back and forth, Drop.io offers a better, cleaner, quicker interface than say DropSend or YouSendIt. Clients and coworkers can email files into a specific drop making it seamless to the client.

Sam noted a social example of how the site has been used when a test user set up a drop before going on a closed group trip. The user told the participants where the drop was and everyone on the trip emailed and uploaded in media during/after the trip all to one private place.

I can see companies using Drop.io for presentations as it will house all of the needed files in an easy location for a specific time period. Families can use the tool to categorize trip memories for other family members, or even as a really easy blogging tool that the whole family can update and view.

Drop.io handles almost any file type, Web links, notes and emails. Audio and video are supported and PDFs are viewable within the Drop.io site. Sam said that other document types (word/excel/etc) are coming soon and also commented, "Some sites only support specific types of media. Drop.io converts pictures, video, audio, and documents, to web friendly formats and whatever we don’t know how to convert we will just store ". I created several drops and found it easy-to-use and non-technical. The non-technical part is important if Drop.io wants to gain mainstream acceptance. You can setup a password to use with the drop and also an admin password for making changes to the drop after it has been created.

Check out the official sample drop and my test CenterNetworks drop.

The business model that Sam and Darshan discussed is based around one time micropayments upgrading ‘drops’. Upgrades to 1 gig of space and other premium options will be available for a small fee per drop. They hint that there are many more upgrades and customizations that they will be releasing over time.

What I would like to see is a variety of social sharing options. For example a Facebook application to share with the friends you want to. A button to direct message on Twitter. I get that drop.io is not for sharing to the world, but I still need an easy way of sharing the drop link that I create.

Darshan and Sam have provided CN with ten free premium upgrade codes. Leave your information in the comments (do not leave your email in the comment, just in the email field) and I will send you an upgrade code.

Sam left me with the following, "We’ve really just kicked off – we’d say this is an ‘Alpha’ launch, but the term has basically lost all meaning anyway. We would love everyone to play around with the site and send us their thoughts/any bugs. We are going to be refining the site directly out of the user feedback. And if you’re a Ruby programmer, we’d love to hear from you – we have some interesting stuff in the oven."