Crate is to sharing files, what Dropbox is to storing them. | Hacker News Reader

Crate is to sharing files, what Dropbox is to storing them.

thestartupfoundry.com

28 pointsg0atbutt29 comments

Something slightly screwy in the workflow for me.

I drag and drop and upload (in Kubuntu, from Dolphin to FF4.0b12pre) without a problem but then I'm presented with this page, http://lts.cr/i/7a78c5.

The page shows me an address and a sign up form ... but aren't I trying to share the file, isn't that the raison d'etre? I was expecting the main action then to be emailing, tweeting, facebooking or otherwise sending the link on to whomever I'm sharing the file with. It even says underneath 1-visit, 2-upload, 3-share ... not 3-login. Just seems odd and disruptive to the flow.

Apart from that I'm mighty impressed, despite initially thinking (as others have) it has nothing over Dropbox I think that it is something that I'll use. Not sure if I'd pay for it though ...

I work with some nontechnical users who occasionally need help getting too-big-for-email files to somebody. Thinking of them, I tried this out.

Dragged a 280MB file onto the big orange box, and got a Mac-style indeterminate progress indicator. OK. Make coffee, check the weather, type this post up to here, and still all I see is the same spinning indeterminate progress indicator. No actual indication of progress, what is happening, or when/if it will be done.

I'm pretty sure those users I mentioned would by now have, a.) created another browser window and tried again, b.) clicked on the spinning wheel a few times to try to elicit some kind of feedback from the app, and then c.) closed the windows and given up.

I really don't understand any advantages of Crate over Dropbox, which also has file sharing through URLs and folder sharing.

I asked this question the last time Crate was on HN and got a vague response.

I found the original response from the last comment to my question (the response is now dead):

* Nothing to download. * Easy to use. * Its the next New Big Thing.

Dropbox is incredibly easy to use, and "The next Big Thing" is not an advantage.

Not having anything to download is nice, but the side-effect is that everything has to manually be uploaded instead of automated.

The API should be done by the end of this weekend. When that's done you'll be able to upload your files however you'd like, provided that you are willing to write some code :)

I'll be honest, I don't think I could possibly even think of a way to improve the Dropbox workflow.

An API is great, but I can't think of what to code that would be better than what's available for free.

but the side-effect is that everything has to manually be uploaded instead of automated.

What's the difference between dragging from one folder to another and dragging from one folder into the browser page? Same amount of effort.

There's a definite use-case for this type of service. Even if you use Dropbox, there are times when you want to transfer files from someone else's machine and they don't use Dropbox.

I don't do any dragging. I just store everything in Dropbox to begin with. Sometimes I forget what Dropbox is, it's that good. Dragging is a pain point.

I do see the use case for non-dropbox users. Unfortunately, I don't think that others not having Dropbox is a strong competitive advantage.

I actually can see the use-case of asking someone for a large file. Having them download Dropbox is a pain, but something that is one-time use would be ideal.

Yeah, that's definitely one of the things we're going to be adding to the service.

Person 1: "Hey, send me that file, use this: url" Person 2: "Oh!" drag and drop

All updated in real time (so you could potentially link a whole group of friends something and see them all drop in files for an event or some-such). Perhaps a school trip or something to that extent.

I've used AirDropper[1] for this a few times when clients needed to send me web design files, and it worked beautifully.

Just connect it to your Dropbox account, send a file request email to the other person, and the files show up in the sandboxed AirDropper folder in your Dropbox account.

It's like magic.

[1] http://airdropper.com/

Can't you also share files with a url through Dropbox? And get 50GB for $9.99/month?

This seems like it would be easier to get a file from someone else though, since it's 100% web.

Dropbox temporarily stops the downloads if a link becomes too "popular".

I assume Crate would not do that.

I kinda doubt that, for $9/month, Crate wants to act as a CDN for your hugely popular feature-length HD film.

I don't see anything about limits in their TOS, but the strong implication is that the service is for sharing with friends, and I don't see any guarantees either. Dropbox is pretty lenient about bandwidth, and I imagine Crate is too.

It's fascinating to me that they're profitable already. I can't imagine it being easy to get users to pay for file sharing.

I suspect there are more people with largish files they need to send someone, and there's never really been a free/easy way to do that.

Yep, you nailed it. A lot of our paid users use Crate as a replacement for FTP to send large files around the office or their friends.

We'll take that as a compliment :)

corporate accounts

Rapidshare and many of it's clones are highly profitable.

This is a great little site. I know that you are saying that the files will last forever but is there a imgur like deletion that the owner of the file can delete the file after they no longer want it up?

Yup, there is.

I went to their site at http://letscrate.com ... I don't like that I have to drag a file from my folder to the browser to upload it ... doesn't seem like normal workflow .. but it could catch on I guess.

Would be really cool if I just clicked and my OS file selector opened up for me to select a file ...

How does this differ from http://getcloudapp.com/? Genuinely curious.

This is my first time seeing either, but I can tell that if I sent someone a link to Crate and and a link to CloudApp and told them to share a file with me, I'd have to spend a few minutes explaining how Cloud works, how to install it etc. With Crate pretty much anyone should be able to figure it out without hand holding.

I haven't tried Crate. I use Cloudapp. I prefer the idea of an app that sits on my menubar — for myself. But for a 1 time solution for someone else, Crate seems like a better solution. It also offers more storage and less limits for a free account.

Cool. Did you do any kind customer development? Analyze any problems, etc?

Do you get a custom url with a paid account?

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