Drop.io

Drop.io was an online file sharing service. It allowed users to quickly create "drops", which could contain files of any type, and could be accessed via the internet, e-mail, phone, fax, and widgets. The service did not require users to sign up for an account, and each drop was private unless the creator chose to share it. Drop.io was named one of TIME Magazine's 50 Best Websites of 2009,[1] and CNET Webware 100.[2]

Drop.io
Available inEnglish
HeadquartersBrooklyn, NYC
OwnerFacebook
IndustryTechnology
URLdrop.io
LaunchedNovember 6, 2007
Current statusDefunct, 2011

On October 29, 2010, Drop.io announced that the company had been purchased by Facebook and that the service would be shutting down. Sam Lessin, one of the site's founders, would be moving to Facebook.[3] As of 15 December 2010, the site is no longer active; the blog is also down, as of November 2011.

Products

Drop.io's free product provided 100 megabytes of storage. Users could upgrade to 25 gigabytes of storage for an annual fee. Drop.io additionally offered a business and education-oriented service called Manager, which aimed to replace FTP systems for file sharing.

History

Drop.io was founded by Sam Lessin and Darshan Somashekar in August 2007. The company's offices were originally located in Manhattan, New York City; it moved to the "DUMBO" neighborhood of Brooklyn in 2008.

Drop.io was nominated for the Technical Achievement Award at the South By Southwest 11th Annual Web Awards in 2007.[4]

On June 10, Drop.io and Scribd, announced a partnership [5] to offer rich conversion and viewing within private "drops", in an attempt to make it easier for people to share private information online. As of 2008, users can find Drop.io on a number of social networking sites, including: Facebook and Twitter.

Between March 2007 and November 2008, drop.io released a series of feature improvements to their platform including 'inputs' and 'outputs' via various interfaces like phone and fax, a Twitter 'subscription' mode,[6] and a Firefox plugin[7][8][9] that allows users to 'drag and drop' files into new or existing 'drops'

In September 2008, drop.io released a very simple API which allows other applications to use drop.io's file sharing ability in their own applications.[10] Several early applications were built, including usend.io (a simple file transfer app like senduit or yousendit).[11][12] Ars Technica appears to have built the first fully operational third party application on the API.

In November 2008, drop.io announced having moved 100% into 'the cloud' having switched away from all owned and rented physical hardware/servers and claimed to be the largest 100% in the cloud application in the world.[13]

Also in November 2008, drop.io released a major design overhaul which completely changed the front end of the product, but maintained the core service.[14]

In December 2008, drop.io was one of the first services to release a Facebook Connect integration, which allowed users to publish updates of any sort made to any drop directly to their Facebook feed [15]

In January 2009, drop.io launched a professional product extension called drop.io manager [16][17] which allowed users to create templates to pre-customize and brand drops, as well as get detailed reporting about how their drops are being used.

In March 2009, drop.io launched playlist.io[18] one in a series of 'applets' which allow for feature customization of drop.io around various use cases [19]

Between February 2009 and May 2009, drop.io started integrating real-time features into its file sharing backbone using XMPP. This initially included chat functionality and real-time streaming of files, but expanded in May to include a web-presentation mode.[20][21][22]

On September 10, 2009, drop.io released Attach Large Files ,[23] a pre-installed application for all Yahoo! Mail users. The app allows users to attach an unlimited amount of files up to 100 Mb and was developed entirely on drop.io's API with their custom-built JavaScript library.

Funding

In November 2007, Drop.io completed a $1.2 million Series A round of financing led by RRE Ventures to support the company's development efforts and infrastructure growth. In March 2008, the company closed $2.7 million in series A-1 financing led by New York venture capital firms DFJ Gotham and RRE Ventures.

People
  • Sam Lessin, CEO
  • Christine Hunsicker, COO
  • Steven Greenwood, VP of Business Development
  • Jacob Robbins, Head of Development
  • Lee Azzarello, Systems Architect

See also

References
  1. Fisher, Adam (2009-08-24). "drop.io - 50 Best Websites 2009". TIME. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
  2. "Webware 100 winner: Dropio | Webware100 - CNET". News.cnet.com. 2009-05-19. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
  3. "Facebook Acquires Simple File-sharing Service Drop.io".
  4. SXSW web finalists Archived December 17, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  5. Kincaid, Jason. "Drop.io Adds Scribd's iPaper For Smoother File Browsing - TechCrunch". Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  6. Portfolio: praise to the open web and harvard
  7. "drop.io". static.drop.io. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  8. Glazowski, Paul. "Drop.io Releases Drag-and-Drop Magic for Firefox 3 Users". Mashable. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  9. Pash, Adam. "Drag & Drop.io Makes Sharing Files Dead Simple". Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  10. "Drop.io adds API, sample apps to "digital switchboard"". Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  11. "download squad send files fast with usend.io". Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  12. Purdy, Kevin. "uSend.io Makes Semi-Big File Sharing Ludicrously Simple". Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  13. "Tech Insider". Business Insider. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  14. "Dropio gets prettier, easier". Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  15. "Adweek". www.allfacebook.com. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  16. "drop.io". manager.drop.io. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  17. "Hands On with the New Drop.io Manager". Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  18. "playlist.io". Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  19. "Adweek". www.socialtimes.com. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  20. Erick Schonfeld May 14, 2009 (2009-05-14). "Drop.io Adds Seamless Screen-Sharing App With Present.io". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
  21. McCarthy, Caroline (2009-03-10). "Dropio jumps into 'the stream,' goes real-time | The Social - CNET News". News.cnet.com. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
  22. Jennifer Van Grove (2009-05-14). "Present.io: Dead Simple Web-Based Presentations". Mashable.com. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
  23. AndrewM (2009-09-10). "Attach up to 100MB or rich media files to your emails". Ymailblog.com. Archived from the original on 2010-11-23. Retrieved 2010-10-14.

Further reading
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