
Why Dropbox Succeeded and Syncplicity Didn’t - sporkbomb
http://wetzler.me/dropbox-syncplicity/
======
theBobMcCormick
Looking at products like Dropbox and Evernote, not to mention _everything_
going on with iPhone/Android apps, I can't help but thing that they provide a
bit of a counter to the conventional wisdom that native "fat clients" are
dead. The people I know who use Dropbox basically never use the Dropbox
website except to sign up and to download the client. The client _is_ the
magic, not the website.

It makes me wonder what other services might benefit from native clients....

~~~
robryan
Without the website though to compliment it dropbox would have been less
valuable to me, although still the best syncing solution. There have been many
times at uni or at someones house where the website interface has come in very
handy.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
I'm certainly not doubting that _not_ having a website at all would be a loss.
It just fascinates me how _much_ of a gain it is for some services to have a
great local client.

------
axiom
Dropbox 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.

~~~
jacquesm
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...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=a+site:www.dropbox.com+inurl:www.dropbox.com/s/&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=)

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.

~~~
thomaswmeyer
This is only for content that's explicitly placed in your "Public" folder, not
for anywhere else in your Dropbox.

~~~
jacquesm
Yes, hence the 'that are not shielded'

~~~
sfphotoarts
I think it seemed that you were trying to imply the dropbox's content (not
just the public portion) would be visible to anyone.

I am glad this was clarified.

~~~
jacquesm
No, definitely not, it's only the public folders and not the rest.

~~~
z92
'not shielded': implies that one has to do extra work to shield those. Default
is not secure scenario.

'public folder': implies one has to do extra work to make those files public.
Default is not public.

I was wondering which one describes Dropbox situation correctly.

------
jacquesm
How 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.

~~~
jamesteow
I'll download anything with a crappy name as long as the functionality is
there. I really couldn't care less.

Do I really think Apple is a great name for a computer manufacturer?
Definitely not on the surface. But they ran with it and now it's accepted as
one of the strongest brands on the planet.

~~~
jacquesm
Hard to find a more universally understood symbol in the western world other
than the cross (and that's a bit much for a computer company). I think it was
an excellent choice.

~~~
eru
> Hard to find a more universally understood symbol in the western world [...]

Sun!

~~~
jacquesm
Good one! I totally dropped the ball there, I searched for things too close to
home :)

------
jcromartie
This guy already said it best: [http://www.quora.com/Dropbox/Why-is-Dropbox-
more-popular-tha...](http://www.quora.com/Dropbox/Why-is-Dropbox-more-popular-
than-other-tools-with-similar-functionality)

~~~
larrik
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.

~~~
VMG
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.

~~~
msbarnett
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.

~~~
pmjordan
_Adding Mac support didn't make DropBox any more complicated for the end
user._

I suspect that's not strictly true. Mac OS X and Windows file systems are
subtly different in features (hard/soft links, aliases, .lnk files; files with
multiple streams; various Finder annotations to files), and I suspect that
once you sync to both Windows and Mac you will run into weird issues. Of
course, syncing to multiple platforms is probably only something "power users"
would do, and they can tolerate some teething problems.

------
jim_h
People probably also had an easier time spelling 'Dropbox', than they did
remembering 'Syncplicity'.

~~~
jhamburger
'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.

~~~
jacquesm
Rapidshare was pretty good too (as a name, the service sucks) and it surprises
me that they never managed to expand in to dropbox's territory.

And with public shared folders dropbox is definitely expanding in to theirs.

~~~
underwater
There is a lot of money in what RapidShare do.

I was working for a company in the same field which was doing maybe a tenth of
the traffic RapidShare and we got a cash offer _well_ into eight figures. This
was a company with four employees and zero funding.

------
bmccormack
"Dropbox limited its feature set on purpose. It had one folder and that folder
always synced without any issues -- it was magic. Syncplicity could sync every
folder on your computer until you hit our quota."

I think I had started to use Dropbox because of its popularity on LifeHacker
and other sites. One of my first complaints was that I was required to use a
single "My Dropbox" folder instead of being able to use my own folder
structure. However, I quickly adapted to the Dropbox model and realized that
for every computer that's connected to Dropbox, everything that's in the
Dropbox folder gets synchronized and everything that is not in the Dropbox
folder is not. Its simplicity is probably the reason why I am still using it.

------
jseliger
This reminds me of something I read earlier:

 _After I left Syncplicity, I ran into the CEO of Dropbox and asked him my
burning question: "Why don't you support multi-folder synchronization?" His
answer was classic Dropbox. They built multi-folder support early on and did
limited beta testing with it, but they couldn't get the UI right. It confused
people and created too many questions. It was too hard for the average
consumer to setup. So it got shelved._

Anyone else reminded of the other article, "How Steve Jobs 'out-Japanned'
Japan"?: [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/28/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/28/apop012811.DTL&type=printable) :

 _Jobs's immersion in Zen and passion for design almost certainly exposed him
to the concept of ma, a central pillar of traditional Japanese aesthetics.
Like many idioms relating to the intimate aspects of how a culture sees the
world, it's nearly impossible to accurately explain -- it's variously
translated as "void," "space" or "interval" -- but it essentially describes
how emptiness interacts with form, and how absence shapes substance. If
someone were to ask you what makes a ring a meaningful object -- the circle of
metal it consists of, or the emptiness that that metal encompasses? -- and you
were to respond "both," you've gotten as close to ma as the clumsy instrument
of English allows.

While Jobs has never invoked the term in public -- one of the aspects of his
genius is the ability to keep even his most esoteric assertions in the realm
of the instantly accessible -- ma is at the core of the Jobsian way. And Jobs'
single-minded adherence to this idiosyncratically Japanese principle is,
ironically, what has allowed Apple to compete with and beat Japan's technology
titans -- most notably the company that for the past four decades dominated
the world of consumer electronics: Sony._

~~~
roel_v
This is an interesting concept. Anyone have further reading material on this
Zen aesthetics / ma thing? Googling these words is leading me to many yoga
shops in Massachusetts ;)

------
Semiapies
I'll be glad when the fad of drop-shadowing body text to look vaguely
"engraved" passes. Thanks, Readability...

------
lionhearted
No one posted the funniest comment in the Quora thread, from Dropbox founder
Drew Houston:

> [http://www.zumsteg.net/2009/03/08/further-comparison-of-
> drop...](http://www.zumsteg.net/2009/03/08/further-comparison-of-dropbox-
> versus-live-sync/)

> (kidding -- mostly)

------
6ren
> After I left Syncplicity, I ran into the CEO of Dropbox and asked him my
> burning question: "Why don't you support multi-folder synchronization?" His
> answer was classic Dropbox. They built multi-folder support early on and did
> limited beta testing with it, but they couldn't get the UI right. It
> confused people and created too many questions. It was too hard for the
> average consumer to setup. So it got shelved.

When I can't get something right, I keep on trying. Maybe not always a good
idea.

~~~
r00fus
> When I can't get something right, I keep on trying. Maybe not always a good
> idea.

I'd say it's a good idea, as long as it's core to what you're doing... if in
the case of Dropbox, it was an ancillary feature, it's good to cut your
losses.

If it's part of your core business model - get it right.

------
guptaneil
As they say, keep it simple, stupid.

To be fair, most companies that complicate their feature set don't do it
because they enjoy writing more code. It's just difficult to focus on your
core competency when a simple product sounds boring on paper. It's so much
harder to pitch to a VC or potential employee. Who wants to support a product
that's just going to sync one folder instead of your entire system? But it's
always the companies that manage to make it through that stage that succeed.

~~~
KMStraub
I nodded vigorously through every sentence of your comment. Well done, and
good to see you're a computer scientist and didn't have to rely on jargon to
make your point.

------
thibaut_barrere
It's so easy to overlook the benefits of staying obsessively focused.

Quickly though, almost in your back, each single bit/feature/line of code
added to the mix multiplies with the others, and it's over already.

~~~
larrik
Non-programmers tend to think that adding a software feature is akin to adding
on to a house. Sure, it take some effort and money, but the resulting house is
surely better, right? (This isn't always true, of course, but still)

In reality, adding a software feature is often like adding onto a house in the
center of it, expanding the rest of the house around it to make room. Suddenly
the job looks a lot tougher.

~~~
eru
Or perhaps if you told them, it's like adding scenes to a film, they'd
understand. There's a reason for deleted scenes.

~~~
derefr
How about "it's like if they took [your favorite sport] and added a new rule
to it. Imagine how much all the theory, leagues, player valuations, etc. would
all change."

Or slightly more precise, but less accessible—"what if your favorite fighting
game got a new character? What if your favorite MMO got a new class?"

------
petervandijck
It's very simple: it Just Worked, and it was Easy. Those two things combined
to make it feel like magic.

The founder of Syncplicity (even the name sounds complex!) said it best:

"In the end, it really came down to one incredibly genius idea: Dropbox
limited its feature set on purpose. It had one folder and that folder always
synced without any issues -- it was magic. Syncplicity could sync every folder
on your computer until you hit our quota. (Unfortunately, that feature was
used to synchronize C:\Windows\ for dozens of users -- doh!) Our company had
too many features and this created confusion amongst our customer base. This
in turn led to enough customer support issues that we couldn't innovate on the
product, we were too busy fixing things.

After I left Syncplicity, I ran into the CEO of Dropbox and asked him my
burning question: "Why don't you support multi-folder synchronization?" His
answer was classic Dropbox. They built multi-folder support early on and did
limited beta testing with it, but they couldn't get the UI right. It confused
people and created too many questions. It was too hard for the average
consumer to setup. So it got shelved."

------
markstahler
I started using Syncplicity. The reliability of the service was very poor in
the beginning (I remember a week long down time) and I seem to remember some
issues getting a computer to Sync again when it is reformatted and given the
same computer name. The issues were enough to move me to Sugar Sync where I
was a paying customer for 12 months. Their service was satisfactory but they
removed my plan (10Gb for $25) from their offerings. I moved to Dropbox where
I have 6gb for free. Not sure how Dropbox is making money (all the people I
know and have referred are free users) but I will enjoy it while it lasts.
Certainly Dropbox is providing the best service of the three.

------
ahrjay
I think the single folder is that killer feature that certainly won them the
market share. It's entry point is incredibly simple yet for the more
technically inclined we can simply setup symbolic links to create the multi
folder functionality.

------
MrDunham
Yet again someone showing how important it is to stay simple.

I can no longer count the number of companies I've talked to who imploded
under the weight of their own features.

~~~
jodrellblank
Perhaps if you just focused on the counting instead of all the other stuff
you're doing...?

------
mahmud
Insync does the same but for you MS Office docs; syncs them to Google Docs
automatically :-)

<http://insyncHQ.com>

People can edit Google Docs with Office, and Office with Docs. No need to
choose one.

------
samengland
This is the similar kind of advice that those behind 37 Signals give in their
book Rework <http://amzn.to/hkrGuU>

------
metachris
Dropbox is such a great name for the service, much better than Syncplicity. I
think that might have facilitated their success.

------
anto1ne
marketing, marketing, and marketing.

I use dropbox forever, was in the closed beta, and at that time I was using
win. And until today I never heard about syncplicity, even though I know and
tried similar services.

It's not about features, platforms, or whatever. I've seen the worst product
succeed only because of marketing.

------
mathnode
sinkplisitie is harderer to spell.

------
u48998
I didn't know about Sugar Sync when I was sucked in to Dropbox hype. I have
changed my mind.

------
aneth
The answer is in the names. People want a dropbox - a place to drop stuff. The
don't want simple syncing. Syncing is part of the implementation of sharing a
"drop box." Syncplicity the name but also the philosophy - the product was
designed around syncing instead of an actual user need.

