
Copy, a competitor to Dropbox, launches today - shamino
http://www.copy.com
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jacalata
" as easy as sending a text file. "

Without being snarky, why would you say a text file here? The only use case
for 'sending a text file' that I can think of is a programmer sharing a
.vimrc, or similar executable text file. The 99% case for someone who wants to
share some plain text, even the .vimrc case, is to paste it in the email. This
analogy feels very odd. How about 'as easy as sending a pdf' or word doc, or
'a single photo', or any kind of file that normal people ever attach to their
emails? (Possible assumption on my part - when you say 'send a file' I think
'email to them'. If you want me to think of 'make the file available for
sharing', say 'share').

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faramarz
Honestly, it's hard to look at this website and have some information stick in
my mind.

It's gorgeous, but I think the design is overpowering the information flow (or
lack there of).

That drop section for files is absolutely useless. Why would I drop my file in
there as my VERY first step? I haven't even begun to learn about the features
before I'm asked to drop my files.

Too much design, it looks perfect, but unfortunately, that's a bad thing this
early in the launch.

Only recently did Dropbox start to ramp up design. You can't compete with
simplicity. In design, in language, in the story etc..

Sorry to go on like this.. maybe I don't have a storage problem now that i'm a
dropbox pro user.

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autotravis
"Too much design, it looks perfect, but unfortunately, that's a bad thing this
early in the launch."

Whaaa...? That does not make sense to me. The UI is not complicated, so why is
it bad that it "looks perfect?"

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josho
Checking the TOS I found a reference to Barracuda Networks.. Leading me to
believe it's a startup within a larger company (I had been wondering how a
startup could afford to buy the copy.com domain).

Given the above assumption it may have the funding to sustain the service even
if it experiences slow growth. And also suggests that the company has the
networking know how to scale their service (unlike my experience with
bitcasa.com so far).

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rhp
I think you're right. We just put in a new Barracuda Backup server this week
and I noticed that, along with the usual file restore functions, it presents
us with an option to share files to a Copy account.

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renownedmedia
There's going to be some cool integrations between Copy and some of the
Barracuda backup hardware. I don't know many details though, you probably
already know more than I do.

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the_watcher
I'm curious, what is your advantage over Dropbox, GDrive, Box, etc? I like the
design, but I don't see another reason to switch.

~~~
renownedmedia
It has a lot more configurable business options, that's the biggest
differentiator.

The cost/GB is a bit less than Dropbox, too.

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klinquist
like?

~~~
renownedmedia
The pricing page mentions some of the business features:
<http://www.copy.local/price/>

Basically, you can setup companies, share items amongst employees, configure
their access to the files, etc.

~~~
captn3m0
Nice to see someone using .local as the development domain.

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martingordon
Where's the API? Dropbox has a tremendous ecosystem going for it. I'm not sure
how prevalent it is on Android, but pretty much all iOS text and PDF editors
have Dropbox integration and their new sync SDK is only going to push
integration even higher.

I can't say I'm a very heavy Dropbox user, so I don't have many complaints (if
any) about their offering, but if you want to get into the space you have to
address those complaints. A shiny UI and better pricing can only get you so
far and there's no way they're enough to beat out a competitor as entrenched
as Dropbox.

~~~
renownedmedia
Actually, everything the app does is through a RESTful API. This API is
private and undocumented (for now). I can't make any promises as to what we
will do with it in the future...

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martingordon
A private and undocumented API doesn't do much for the people who develop or
rely on one or more of the several hundred (thousand?) iOS apps that already
integrate Dropbox.

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akinnee
To clarify, there are definite plans to document and release the Copy API. The
only thing we can't make promises about is when that will happen (soon?).

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testimoney2
I am pissed that dropbox makes me pay 9$ / month to have 100gb that I don't
need. I do not want 250gb, absolutely not useful :(. I would love a 5$ /month
plan with 50gb

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davidjgraph
Does it have LAN sync and native integrated get-me-the-URL-for-this-file? If
not, forget it.

The about page says nothing about who is behind this. I have zero confidence
in apps with no "about us".

The market positioning seems to be trying to take a little from Dropbox, a
little from Box. To target the Enterprise market, as Box does, this is orders
of magnitude off what is needed.

Sorry to be so negative, but technically I suspect this has taken a lot of
effect, the marketing is as awful as it gets.

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renownedmedia
Oh, and we're a project of Barracuda Networks.

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davidjgraph
You're employees of <https://www.barracudanetworks.com/> , you're funded by
them?

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signed0
I was wondering that too. The ToS says "Barracuda Networks" at the top.
<https://www.copy.com/about/tos/>

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fjdghsd
A friend of mine sent me a link to Copy and told me to sign up for it and that
"it's like Dropbox." I just clicked his link to check it out and the first
thing your website did was ask for permission to use desktop notifications
(Safari/OS X). Of course, not even knowing what the website is I promptly
rejected the prompt and then closed the tab.

My complaint with this is that why in the world would I blindly let a random
website have extended permissions, before I even know what the website is?

Afte I got over it some hours later, I went back to copy.com to check it out
and I found nothing in your website that would make me want to switch from
Dropbox (for ease of use) or Spideroak (for encryption and security). One of
the comments here said exactly what I'm thinking: I have no idea who you guys
are, why I should trust you with my data, and that you'll even be around after
a year.

From reading some comments here, apparently you're part of Barracuda Networks
(no idea who this is, so it doesn't help) and some other snarky comments like
"check out humans.txt" or "look at the html code and you'll see Facebook IDs…"
No, no I'm not going to waste my time doing this.

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kevincennis
I wonder what it cost to buy copy.com

~~~
t0
Around $100k.
[http://www.namejet.com/pages/auctions/standarddetails.aspx?a...](http://www.namejet.com/pages/auctions/standarddetails.aspx?auctionid=3296634)

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purephase
As others have stated, I wish there was a bit more information about the
service on the page. I use Dropbox and GDrive, but I'm not particularly fond
of either of them. Aside from a slight price difference, what makes Copy stand
out?

For example, I have a 1Password file that I would like to share amongst my
team for all service related passwords. Keeping this in sync with all of our
devices is a serious pain, and often results in certain members owning it
(usually me) and thus having all of the responsibility.

It doesn't have to be 1Password. I have tried other apps like Keepass with
similar results (and web-based versions, I do not like -- security etc.).

I realize that this is hard. Version control, multiple access to the same
files and associated updates but it would really be a killer feature.

~~~
webwanderings
I gave up on using any password manager program with any cloud sync service. I
am back to plain old Excel file which I daily "backup" to the cloud using
native backup service.

I think for important and daily-used files, relying on cloud service (read:
keeping and working off of cloud) is not trust-worthy. I'd rather keep things
local and only use cloud for backup.

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thesmok
I keep my KeePass file in Dropbox, it means that file is actually on my
computer but also synced to the cloud. Copy offers the same behaviour, unlike
Wuala: in Wuala you can't access your files without having their Java-based
monster running.

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renownedmedia
There's a buried comment in here about the login being a javascript popup.
Here's a normal HTML page for doing logins: <https://www.copy.com/auth/login/>

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apapli
Can you put some words up there about how safe my data would be?

Because it looks like the site is based on twitter bootstrap, my mind has
immediately led me to think you're doing the storage etc on a bootstrap
budget. Potentially leaving it all up to S3.

Seems this wont be the case as you are part of Barracuda Networks, can you put
some more words up there to help ease my (and other users') concerns?

~~~
renownedmedia
I can assure you that there was no Bootstrap involved in the making of Copy :p

We're taking a lot of this feedback and looking into rewording things.

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e1ven
Reading through.. And no mention of client-side encryption. I'm not sure I see
the point - We have lots of competition in this space.

~~~
renownedmedia
Traffic from the desktop clients to the server is all done over HTTPS

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atto
What happens to the files on the server? Do they sit unencrypted (so sensitive
files are a no-go)?

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jamesbrennan
I'm very impressed with the Copy web interface. Drag and drop works
flawlessly. The in-browser preview is really nice as well.

Does anyone have experience with Barracuda Networks (the owner of Copy)? The
name sounds familiar, are the reputable?

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renownedmedia
Barracuda has like 200k customers and has been around for at least several
years. Here's more information: <https://www.barracudanetworks.com/company/>

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cypherpunks01
Somewhat unfortunate name?

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valverde
It seems to be appropriate.

~~~
8ig8
I _think_ it was tongue in cheek as in a _copy_ of DropBox.

Maybe?

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vivekrajanna
Only thing one would excel over dropbox is that create some context aware data
to be used without manually searching the whole files. other wise there
already far too many service

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samstave
You mean where I can type in a search term and have it search within the files
and tell me which one has that content?

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samstave
Origami.com is close to launch... when you About page said "origami is an...."
I at first thought you guys were related.

Especially given what Origami.com is trying to do...

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ctz
Front page looks broken on chrome for android:

<http://imgur.com/k2mNFVc>

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renownedmedia
We will buy our GUI programmer an Android tablet :)

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webwanderings
The About section does not say who is behind. The only thing you have going
for you is your domain name.

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samstave
Actually, the very bottom of the About page has a link to and logo of
Barracuda networks, but yeah - the about page needs a lot of work.

~~~
akinnee
We added that logo because of some of the comments on here. :) We're
definitely going to improve the site to give more information about what Copy
is. Our main focus so far has been on the product.

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goronbjorn
That must've been an expensive domain name purchase.

~~~
renownedmedia
If you read the comments you'll see that someone was able to hunt down the
price...

~~~
samstave
Are you an actual employee or a PR minion?

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ZachWick
renownedmedia and I are two of the developers of the Copy product. I can
assure you that he is not a "PR minion" - he can sling code better than most.

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samstave
Thanks - the rapidity with which they were answering questions and the
username made me suspicious it was a PR campaign (professional)

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donniezazen
Unfortunately not available for Linux.

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dschep
Yes it is. I thought the same when I clicked "Install App", but the big button
in that popup window downloaded a tarball for linux.

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ChrisClark
They definitely need to label it better then. I know the wording, 'also
available for Windows and Mac' should have explained it to me, but my brain
was being dumb and all I saw was Window/Mac and I just left the site.

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huhsamovar
Are stored files guaranteed to stay on US soil?

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renownedmedia
Yes. All of our data centers are currently located in the US, and if we do
offer overseas storage, we'll make that an explicit choice.

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helloamar
i download the mac app and created the account, still its not able to login

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akinnee
@helloamar

Will you please open a support ticket by emailing support@copy.com?

