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Facebook Acquires Drop.io

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Re: Facebook Acquires Drop.io

#41

Post by kaens »

teaspoon wrote: post #39
jack7890 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not unreasonable for drop.io to burn $500k/mo? I run a ten-man startup and I can't fathom burning that much.

Do you host an unlimited number of 100MB files, indefinitely, for an unlimited number of non-paying users?

No, but if I did, I'm fairly certain I could do it for less than $500,000/mo, assuming I can do something like "once your file has been hosted without being downloaded for more than x amount of time, users will get a link sent to an email a few hours or so after requesting the file".

Some tuning on that, and I'm fairly certain you could run things for less than $500,000k a month -- most files are probably uploaded, downed a few times in a week or two by a select number of people, and then forgotten.

Then again, and this is key here, I have not tried this. It's also something that could be difficult to patch into codebase if it wasn't considered early -- we're all familiar with the problem of coding ourselves into corners, especially when time is on the table.

Re: Facebook Acquires Drop.io

#43

Post by biznickman »

waxman wrote: post #8

Facebook's recent talent acquisitions sort of make sense to me from Facebook's standpoint (good, entrepreneurial talent is hard to find), but I wonder how the founders, employees, users, and investors feel about these relatively odd buyouts. This drop.io deal sounds a lot like the Hot Potato acquisition from a few months ago: in both cases the startups were well-funded, but didn't have much traction, and then Faceboo…

To be totally frank ... Zuckerberg just helped out one of his friends. Sam Lessin lived in the same dorm as Zuck and they were friends (despite the fact that the Social Network movie suggests he only had one, he had a few).

Sam helped him out and now he's repaying the favor. If it was $10M+ that's nothing when Zuck's a billionaire on paper. Additionally, it doesn't matter what the investors think as he still has complete control of the company. I don't think it's fair to compare Hot Potato and drop.io as there's a history with the founder that wasn't there before.

If I'm sitting on a runaway success, you better be damn sure that I'm going to help my genius friend (Sam's a crazy smart guy) out and bring him on whenever I can. He's only going to add value and when Facebook is expected to be worth $100 billion eventually (pure speculation right now but it's in that direction), there's nothing wrong with holding out a golden hand.

Re: Facebook Acquires Drop.io

#44

Post by Jardenberg »

jkhaff wrote: post #35

I'd love hearing more drop.io alternative suggestions from others. Dropbox and Tonido have been mentioned, but they really aren't the same thing. My band lives in various areas of the country, and we share mp3 files via drop.io. We're able to comment on each riff/song, link directly to the files, get updates via RSS, and even listen to the mp3s without downloading them. Anything else like this exist?

For that specific need you should use http://soundcloud.com

Re: Facebook Acquires Drop.io

#45

Post by ahoyhere »

biznickman wrote: post #43
waxman wrote: post #8

Facebook's recent talent acquisitions sort of make sense to me from Facebook's standpoint (good, entrepreneurial talent is hard to find), but I wonder how the founders, employees, users, and investors feel about these relatively odd buyouts. This drop.io deal sounds a lot like the Hot Potato acquisition from a few months ago: in both cases the startups were well-funded, but didn't have much traction, and then Faceboo…

To be totally frank ... Zuckerberg just helped out one of his friends. Sam Lessin lived in the same dorm as Zuck and they were friends (despite the fact that the Social Network movie suggests he only had one, he had a few). Sam helped him out and now he's repaying the favor. If it was $10M+ that's nothing when Zuck's a billionaire on paper. Additionally, it doesn't matter what the investors think as he still has comp…

Then why did Sam fuck over his loyal users?

Nobody ever asked us to pay. We would have. But suddenly, bam! It's gone.

Was it a non-negotiable part of the acquisition? Or did he not even try to negotiate?

Re: Facebook Acquires Drop.io

#46

Post by edash »

ahoyhere wrote: post #45
biznickman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be totally frank ... Zuckerberg just helped out one of his friends. Sam Lessin lived in the same dorm as Zuck and they were friends (despite the fact that the Social Network movie suggests he only had one, he had a few). Sam helped him out and now he's repaying the favor. If it was $10M+ that's nothing when Zuck's a billionaire on paper. Additionally, it doesn't matter what the investors think as he still has comp…

Then why did Sam fuck over his loyal users? Nobody ever asked us to pay. We would have. But suddenly, bam! It's gone. Was it a non-negotiable part of the acquisition? Or did he not even try to negotiate?

Drop.io has paid features and additional storage for a fee. I've been a paying user for two years. Paid accounts were even mentioned in the blog post announcing the acquisition.

Seeing the recent development of the site and the evolution of Dropbox made it clear Drop.io wouldn't be around long term.

Re: Facebook Acquires Drop.io

#47

Post by edash »

jackowayed wrote: post #9
seiji wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook only does talent acquisitions. Though, I always wondered why drop.io got any attention. Upload thing. Get URL. Share URL? Optional paywall behind URL. Did they have other features?

A nice interface. Making it extremely easy to do something simple (but something that the average person can't do without some kind of service) is often all you need. Don't complain about others' successes. Learn from this that a nice interface for something simple is often enough, and go find a market where you can do the same thing, and get rich :) (Note that I've used it to a very limited extent. But even if they…

I was a paying customer and actually found it somewhat difficult to use.

When an upload finished, many of my friends / contractors didn't know you'd need to refresh the page to view files. I'd sometimes find two or three copies of the same file in a given drop.

My drop had an admin password, but also a manager password (which were different, but would presumably be used by the same person).

Even browsing for files to upload was more difficult than it should have been. Once a file was selected some users assumed it was being uploaded already.

These were manageable interface problems for me, but required delineated instructions to the "average user."

Re: Facebook Acquires Drop.io

#48

Post by petervandijck »

waxman wrote: post #8

Facebook's recent talent acquisitions sort of make sense to me from Facebook's standpoint (good, entrepreneurial talent is hard to find), but I wonder how the founders, employees, users, and investors feel about these relatively odd buyouts. This drop.io deal sounds a lot like the Hot Potato acquisition from a few months ago: in both cases the startups were well-funded, but didn't have much traction, and then Faceboo…

If the site/businesses that they had build where worth anything at all, surely they would have sold them too instead of shutting them down?

Re: Facebook Acquires Drop.io

#49

Post by jkhaff »

Jardenberg wrote: post #44
jkhaff wrote: post #35

I'd love hearing more drop.io alternative suggestions from others. Dropbox and Tonido have been mentioned, but they really aren't the same thing. My band lives in various areas of the country, and we share mp3 files via drop.io. We're able to comment on each riff/song, link directly to the files, get updates via RSS, and even listen to the mp3s without downloading them. Anything else like this exist?

For that specific need you should use http://soundcloud.com

Thanks for the suggestions. SoundCloud would be great, except keeping the riffs/music private is important and there's no secret link sharing in the free account (the lite account is €30). Still searching for alternatives... nothing I've seen yet is as good as drop.io for this purpose.

Re: Facebook Acquires Drop.io

#50

Post by follower »

jkhaff wrote: post #35

I'd love hearing more drop.io alternative suggestions from others. Dropbox and Tonido have been mentioned, but they really aren't the same thing. My band lives in various areas of the country, and we share mp3 files via drop.io. We're able to comment on each riff/song, link directly to the files, get updates via RSS, and even listen to the mp3s without downloading them. Anything else like this exist?

> Dropbox and Tonido have been mentioned, but they really aren't the same thing.

As an aside, an interesting difference with Tonido is they also sell a "plug-in server" for their service too: http://www.tonidoplug.com/ I assume it's based on a SheevaPlug / Marvell Plug Computer style device.

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