Do normal people actually ‘get’ Dropbox? – Updated x2 –

So i’ve been wrestling with the concept of the cloud for some time now. I initially hated the fact that it had its own term, after all, isn’t everything on the internet the cloud? Much has been written about the dawn of cloud computing and hyperbolic rhetoric about its impending disruption is annoying and just down-right confusing to normal people. Its like coke, fanta or sprite, in the end its all sugar. Same applies to the Cloud.

Alas, the marketing genius machines around the world seem to think the Cloud is actually something to sell, like a product of sorts. Even Apple practices this and here’s where I think people just aren’t getting it. Or rather, don’t need to get it. If we dial back a bit to the when email was the trendy tech on the block, we might remember some of the terms used to convey what we now hold to be quite a simple concept. It was “Electronic Mail” that you either got for free from your Internet Service Provider (Read: CompuServe/AOL) or you had a snazzy new Hotmail account. You logged in and regardless of the computer you used, your messages were the same. So yeah, back then you were actually using a product from the future called “Cloud Computing”. Except, no, thats just email, right? Here’s the problem, nothing has actually changed yet everyone is inclined to self induce some amnesia and act like having the same information across a variety of devices is actually something amazing.

Granted, it is awesome and a technical feat worthy of much respect when you consider the numbers Tim Cook mentioned at the last iPad event. But set aside the technical grandeur for a moment and imagine what this boils down to for normal people.

Actually.. wait. Look at this intro video from Dropbox and then think about how normal people see this. (This video is the intro video on their homepage)

(Disclaimer: I love Dropbox)

The video above is just a perfect example of what’s wrong here. You have this elaborate scenario with real life examples that are overly explicit to the point of confusion. Why I ask. I come back to the email example; nobody seems to question why emails are the same regardless of the computer they are using. They delete it on their iPhone, it is then deleted from their computer and also from their iPad. People get it! So why the big drama and the need for a 2.11 minute video? Let’s dig a little deeper. Perhaps there is an inherent tangibility and a spacial aspect to files, that makes it difficult for people to imagine them being in more than one location simultaneously. In fact, perhaps the fault occurs earlier, prior to the interaction with Dropbox, between the normal person and the file system. The file system, along with file names, forces normal people to think of files as instantiations of content. draft1.0, draft1.2 etc, so because of this, the normal person tends to develop methods of organizing these instantiations, hence the term ‘file structure’. Everyone’s is different, some are better at it than others but I am willing to make a sweeping statement here and declare that everyone’s sucks.

Yes indeed, why? Because your file structure is only as good as your last save. Misplace a document and the error rate for a normal person goes sky high. Do you think normal people use “Spotlight” ? This isn’t anything new, and the life of the file system has been better examined and more thoroughly dissected by people smarter than I am. My specific contention comes about when a company like Dropbox with a great product tries to explain what it does and hurts itself in the process. The premise  of Dropbox’s video comes in around the 0.40 second mark where they talk about folders. This is great for the people who understand and tend to their folders with care and regularity, but its a fickle position to be in as a company when your entire product relies on the normal person to master a magical folder.

Here’s what I think Dropbox should put on their homepage (Albeit with the help of a visual designer)

A venn diagram and alternating lines like: The same picture across all your devices / The same song across all your devices / the same Word document across all your devices

Writing this actually reminds me of the widely discussed story from a while back where Steve Jobs held that Dropbox was a feature not a product. I would contend that for that not to be true, Dropbox has to stop doing what it does insanely well and initiate a divorce from the file system. If they don’t, then the onslaught from iCloud, Google..whatever its called and the other me-too’s will effectively turn Dropbox into the best filesystem synchronization tool that geeks everywhere will love. Said simply, They need to become content specific, not file/folder specific.

This topic is not even close to dead and i’m not even close to exploring everything in it. This is just the intro.

Next post i’ll be discussing why Dropbox ≠ iCloud and why it matters.

-UPDATE-

Fellow blogger and friend Sebastian Ortner has a good post on the topic on his blog here

–UPDATE x2-

Looks like someone shares my thinking: BoxOneCloud looks like they have something here

-DF