Drop.io is an online file hosting and sharing service that is designed to be simple and emphasizes privacy. It allows users to create online sharing points called “drops” that are used for uploading and sharing documents, images, video, audio, and other digital content without accounts, registration or e-mail addresses. Drops are non-searchable and not networked.

Drop.io is rooted in a model which highlights trust and transparency with the intent of minimizing the amount of information needed to share privately based on private URLs, passwords, and expiration settings. The model of privacy, which is known as Simple Privacy or Casual Privacy has been described by Kellan Elliott-McCrea of Flickr as “a design pattern for sharing non-public information using out-of-band exchange of unguessable tokens.” Another service following the same basic model is Flickr Guest Pass.

The service does not require embedded accounts, identity, search, or any other social elements. Its core philosophy is to create a simple, private system based on inputs and outputs. Users send “in” files (documents, images, videos, audio files, archives, and more) via various methods (web, mms, email, phone and fax) into their “Drops”. Once in the drops, users can view their content and move it “out” via the web, email, mms, and fax.

Drop.io was founded by entrepreneurs Sam Lessin and Darshan Somashekar in August 2007. The company was originally located in Manhattan and moved to its new office location in Dumbo, Brooklyn in 2008.

In November 2007, Drop.io completed a $1.2 million Series A round of financing lead 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.

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

On June 10th Drop.io and Scribd, the leading platform for online document publishing, announced a partnership to offer rich conversion and viewing within private “drops”, 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, and a Firefox plugin 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. Several early applications were built, including usend.io (a simple file transfer app like senduit or yousendit). Arstechnica 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.

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.

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.

Drop.io is an account-free service that offers:

• 100 MB of free non-searchable storage with ability to upgrade to an infinite amount of storage for a fee
• Password protection and expiration settings
• Formatting and design customizations
• The ability to store and share images, documents, video, audio, and other digital content
• Free faxing
• Free e-mailing into and out of drops
• Free custom phone number and extension to add more information via e-mail, mms or phone
• Free voicemail sent into drops
• Custom expiration dates for each drop

Links

• drop.io