Eh, "you've never heard of"?
It's CNN, it's for normal people.
Dropbox: The hottest startup you've never heard of
71–80 of 90 posts
Re: Dropbox: The hottest startup you've never heard of
#72I think this article is perfectly valid. What everyone here is forgetting is that we are a pretty focused demographic of technical people. If you ask the average CNN user what Dropbox is you'll probably get a blank stare. The fact that an article like this is BEING written is just another sign of Dropbox's success... it may be crossing the tipping point to main-stream media and adoption outside of the tech community.…
>cloud computing -- that catchall phrase corporations use to describe services delivered via the Internet With this line they are streets ahead of most pure tech sites in terms of accuracy.
cloud computing, renting servers/VM's. I'm going to be the Hertz of Servers! Or maybe the AirBnb of computing power!.
Re: Dropbox: The hottest startup you've never heard of
#73Dropbox is awesome, I use it, I love it.
I had the same thought as SwellJoe around early 2008: That's been done, it ain't gonna go anywhere big. Obviously failed prediction on my part.
So the question is, what made Dropbox successful? There are plenty of players in this area (some of them are older than dropbox): box.net, mozy.com, Windows Live mesh, backblaze.
Furthermore, techies can easily do backup to their own S3 account, but they love Dropbox.
What's the success factors? YC? Being MIT graduates? The clever "Tell your friends and get more space for free" email? The market is just HUGE?
I know that 1 of them is using Python. =)
Re: Dropbox: The hottest startup you've never heard of
#74I think this article is perfectly valid. What everyone here is forgetting is that we are a pretty focused demographic of technical people. If you ask the average CNN user what Dropbox is you'll probably get a blank stare. The fact that an article like this is BEING written is just another sign of Dropbox's success... it may be crossing the tipping point to main-stream media and adoption outside of the tech community.…
>cloud computing -- that catchall phrase corporations use to describe services delivered via the Internet With this line they are streets ahead of most pure tech sites in terms of accuracy.
lol so true. I was ranting about the overuse of this term a few weeks back: http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-is-it-cloud-everythin...
Re: Dropbox: The hottest startup you've never heard of
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love Dropbox for not using this horrible term.
Horrible term? Just because it's the catch phrase du jour doesn't mean it's totally meaningless. I get annoyed with the buzz and malapropism just as much as the next guy, but like it or not, cloud computing is a major global phenomenon.
It IS a meaningless phrase in the sense that it's being used.
When I was studying network engineering, "the cloud" used to encompass the broader network environment that INCLUDED the Internet as an extension of your enterprise infrastructure. Now? It's a hyperbolic, singular phrase that is limited to using the internet as an extension of your operating system without fully explaining or at least detailing for the end user why it matters.
Especially in the case of those god.awful Microsoft commercials. In their case, the way it's presented, the cloud is nothing less synonymous with social networking. Change your Facebook status from Windows? That's the cloud. Upload a picture to Flickr? That's the cloud. It's no better than that phase of 'web 2.0' that was nothing more than superficial design elements that included shiny buttons, dropping vowels and slapping the term 'beta' on everything. The web is cyclical and this is the latest cycle.
While that in and of itself isn't BAD per se, it's a phrase that's come synonymous with "rockstar" and "ninja" when talking about hiring developers. A total and complete non sequitur.
Re: Dropbox: The hottest startup you've never heard of
#76counterpoint: Dropbox is a great product, clever tech, insightful marketing etc. Even the YC application was great. And I think there's a large market (even its present size is more than enough to sate my own avarice), but... it doesn't seem that it could become a truly huge company (like Xerox, Google), without launching a series of increasingly unrelated products. Though perhaps that's true of many huge companies (…
All the applications that have been built on top of Dropbox like this: http://frenzyapp.com/
and this: http://droppages.com/Getting+started
If they get fees from these apps when they monetise they become a platform or a framework, then the sky is the limit
App directory: https://www.dropbox.com/apps
Re: Dropbox: The hottest startup you've never heard of
#77There is a PyCon video about Dropbox:
PyCon 2011: How Dropbox Did It and How Python Helped
http://pycon.blip.tv/file/4878722/
Re: Dropbox: The hottest startup you've never heard of
#78I think this article is perfectly valid. What everyone here is forgetting is that we are a pretty focused demographic of technical people. If you ask the average CNN user what Dropbox is you'll probably get a blank stare. The fact that an article like this is BEING written is just another sign of Dropbox's success... it may be crossing the tipping point to main-stream media and adoption outside of the tech community.…
My Son's elementary school principal sends the PTA newsletter out via email with a link to it in his Dropbox. He couldn't figure out how to attach it to the email. I think Dropbox may be a bit more well known outside of the "techie" crowd more than you think.
Re: Dropbox: The hottest startup you've never heard of
#79I think this article is perfectly valid. What everyone here is forgetting is that we are a pretty focused demographic of technical people. If you ask the average CNN user what Dropbox is you'll probably get a blank stare. The fact that an article like this is BEING written is just another sign of Dropbox's success... it may be crossing the tipping point to main-stream media and adoption outside of the tech community.…
>cloud computing -- that catchall phrase corporations use to describe services delivered via the Internet With this line they are streets ahead of most pure tech sites in terms of accuracy.
Good Chevy Chase reference.
Re: Dropbox: The hottest startup you've never heard of
#80I love dropbox and we use it personally and for our company (we are paid subscribers). But it seems to me that this space has fewer barriers to entry than say Groupon. People argue that Groupon has little barriers to entry but the fact is that it cost a lot to sell and get merchants on board. Dropbox is a very unique and helpful product but what will stop the competition from creating something similar and possibly better?