I didn't know about Sugar Sync when I was sucked in to Dropbox hype. I have changed my mind.
Why Dropbox Succeeded and Syncplicity Didn’t
11–20 of 70 posts
Re: Why Dropbox Succeeded and Syncplicity Didn’t
#12Dropbox was a YC company, which meant they had quite a bit of free press and access to a lot of valley connections. I would imagine that had a lot to do with their success.
Re: Why Dropbox Succeeded and Syncplicity Didn’t
#13How do you even pronounce syncplicity? Dropbox is a nobrainer in just about every language that is somewhat relevant on the internet for commercial reasons, that alone would give them an edge.
Sycn?what? Oh, never mind, I'll just use dropbox.
Cutesy names are rarely worth the downside. Keep it short, simple, easy to spell and pronounceable in an un-ambiguous way.
Or you'll never even get to the point where you have to worry about how your competitor is doing in terms of pricing or features.
Re: Why Dropbox Succeeded and Syncplicity Didn’t
#14This guy already said it best: http://www.quora.com/Dropbox/Why-is-Dropbox-more-popular-tha...
The top comment there doesn't seem insightful at all, especially when compared to the next comment from the Syncplicity founder. For instance:
No, shut up. People don't use that crap. They just want a folder. A folder that syncs.
Apparently every time somebody at Dropbox suggested more features, he was simply told to "shut up." It sounds like the Dropbox guys got it right simply by being not retarded, like the commenter but unlike any of their competitors. Not really; according to the Syncplicity guy, Dropbox built multi-folding syncing and discarded it after they realized they couldn't make it simple enough for users. The lesson is not to "shut up" and listen to people who know what they're doing; the lesson is to design your UI carefully and pay close attention to how users actually use your product.
No, shut up. Most of the world doesn't sit in front of their browser all day. If they do, it is IE 6 at work that they are not allowed to upgrade.
As the Syncplicity founder pointed out, it was more important to get coverage from tech journalists using Macs. (After all, if folks are stuck with IE6 and aren't able to install Firefox, how are they going to install Dropbox?)
Re: Why Dropbox Succeeded and Syncplicity Didn’t
#15Dropbox was a YC company, which meant they had quite a bit of free press and access to a lot of valley connections. I would imagine that had a lot to do with their success.
I'm sure it didn't hurt them but their execution to date has been impeccable.
One thing has popped up recently: Dropbox relies on the urls to folders in 'boxes' that are shared to remain secret, nothing stops google from indexing the contents once the location is known, there is no 'robots.txt' that instructs google not to peek there.
This could lead to a lot of people being highly surprised that the contents of their secret stash are suddenly open to the portion of the population that uses google.
The problem is that it's not just the users that nominally own the data that control this, basically everybody that you share that url with can 'leak' it to google, either by using a toolbar or by posting it on some webpage. After that it's fair game.
To see this for yourself:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=a+site...
According to dropbox support this is by design, but I can still see how some people might be very surprised by this.
edited for clarity, thanks thomaswmeyer.
Re: Why Dropbox Succeeded and Syncplicity Didn’t
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for linking to the original. There's some real gems in here from the founder of Syncplicity. For instance, not having a Mac client meant that the tech press wouldn't touch it. Then, they wouldn't write about it. That's pretty enlightening.
It is a little contradiction to the statement "My philosophy is that they're right if their feature request is right only if it works for 80% of your customers." . Apparently sometimes a small minority of customers still can make all the difference.
I think it's important to distinguish "platform compatibility" from the kinds of feature requests he's talking about, because I don't think the take home lesson is necessarily "cater to some minorities' requests".
Adding Mac support didn't make DropBox any more complicated for the end user -- there were no new corner cases or potential conflict scenarios, no new steps in the setup, no additional configuration complexity, basically no cost at all in terms of end-user mental load in order to extend their product beyond the Windows platform and reach some important taste-makers.
This is distinct from the end user confusion created by adding, say, multiple folder support or any of the other complex features and configuration options that users will clamour for. When you don't carefully curate those kinds of features, you end up sticking your users in tyranny-of-choice territory in a way that simply broadening your platform support doesn't.
Re: Why Dropbox Succeeded and Syncplicity Didn’t
#17This guy already said it best: http://www.quora.com/Dropbox/Why-is-Dropbox-more-popular-tha...
Thanks for linking to the original. There's some real gems in here from the founder of Syncplicity. For instance, not having a Mac client meant that the tech press wouldn't touch it. Then, they wouldn't write about it. That's pretty enlightening.
I think this dovetails nicely with Mark Suster's article from awhile back: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/03/22/6-tips-to-buil...
Basically, active engagement with journalists is key to getting the right press, especially in a competitive market.
Re: Why Dropbox Succeeded and Syncplicity Didn’t
#18Dropbox was a YC company, which meant they had quite a bit of free press and access to a lot of valley connections. I would imagine that had a lot to do with their success.
I'm sure it didn't hurt them but their execution to date has been impeccable. One thing has popped up recently: Dropbox relies on the urls to folders in 'boxes' that are shared to remain secret, nothing stops google from indexing the contents once the location is known, there is no 'robots.txt' that instructs google not to peek there. This could lead to a lot of people being highly surprised that the contents of thei…
This is only for content that's explicitly placed in your "Public" folder, not for anywhere else in your Dropbox.
Re: Why Dropbox Succeeded and Syncplicity Didn’t
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure it didn't hurt them but their execution to date has been impeccable. One thing has popped up recently: Dropbox relies on the urls to folders in 'boxes' that are shared to remain secret, nothing stops google from indexing the contents once the location is known, there is no 'robots.txt' that instructs google not to peek there. This could lead to a lot of people being highly surprised that the contents of thei…
This is only for content that's explicitly placed in your "Public" folder, not for anywhere else in your Dropbox.
Yes, hence the 'that are not shielded'
Re: Why Dropbox Succeeded and Syncplicity Didn’t
#20People probably also had an easier time spelling 'Dropbox', than they did remembering 'Syncplicity'.
'Dropbox' is one of the best product names I've ever heard. Someone mentioned it to me once and I instantly knew exactly what it must be, and remembered it forever.