While visiting my apartment leasing office, I was randomly asked if I knew anything about computers. This question is always an interesting one as it tends to go in so many different directions. The issue at hand involved sending a ~90MB video to the corporate office of the leasing agent. While this may seem simple to many of us, it’s a more complicated task for many others.

I took the opportunity to give drop.io a quick real-world test and attempt to answer the leasing reps completely unexpected question. The result was flawless and the leasing office employees were incredibly thankful.

Today’s how-to shows how drop.io takes the complexity out of file sharing and collaboration for people at any skill level to use, along with many other collaboration tasks.

Drop Dead Simple File Sharing

As many of you already know, drop.io is a web app that makes file sharing beyond easy. It consists of three easy steps; name your drop, select your files and click Create A Drop. Although you can only store 100MB per drop (upgrades available), it’s free, requires no lengthy signup process and you’re not limited to the number of free drops you can create.

While creating drop.io drops are incredibly simple, extra functionality and features haven’t been left out. Set an admin password for later or optionally skip it if you just need the drop for a brief period of time.

From here, you’re ready to start sharing your files with the world (or maybe just one person). You can send people the URL to your drop (the example here would be http://drop.io/webappstorm) or you can share a specific file via link, embed or by sending.

While apps such as dropbox, SugarSync and Droplr work fantastically well for general file sharing and storage, they just don’t compare to the collaboration powerhouse that is drop.io.

In the situation described at the beginning of this article, the leasing rep was impressed and overjoyed that the process of sharing files could be so simple (not to mention free). I explained to her that it doesn’t stop there; that she would be able to allow others to comment and edit her files (among other things).

Although this is just the tip of the drop.io file sharing and collaboration iceberg, it’s a good example of a web app cutout for the tech savvy and the not so tech savvy.

Embeded Upload Widget

If you’re a freelance designer or web developer, you probably have many clients who send you files frequently. People tend to want to send them via email, regardless of file size. Not only does this clog up your inbox but people who attempt to send large files via email discover it just won’t work.

Rather than attempting to explain how to use FTP or something else, just embed the drop.io upload widget directly in your website (which your clients are probably already familiar with) and instruct them to send their files to you that way.

I don’t think it gets much simpler than that for clients to send you files!

Conference Calls, Voicemail and Faxes

Yes, along with awesome file sharing capabilities and a plethora of other features available, drop.io also offers a unique phone number to each drop for conference calls. With apps like Skype, you might be wondering why you would need this. The answer is simple—do you really want to explain setting up Skype (or another app) to a client or other party? Or maybe you don’t want to pay for the extra minutes or charges incurred by three-way calling on your cell phone?

Along with conference calling, you can get voicemail. There are many reasons I love this feature, one being that voicemails are recorded as mp3′s and downloadable. So it’s not just a voicemail system, it’s great for making notes, podcasters, etc.

Faxes are so… 30 years ago? Well, not for some companies. I used to work at a newspaper a few years ago that heavily relied on faxing to send even basic information. By the end of the day, we would have gone through one or two reams of paper. Once I discovered drop.io, I sent the new fax number to all our clients and poof, no more wasting paper!

The fax feature is only available to premium drops, so you’ll have to pay at least $10 (per year) to get access to it. Along with $10 though, your drop will be upgraded to 1GB of storage. At $10 per GB, it does seem a little expensive—but considering the tools you have access to, it’s a steal of a deal.

Final Thoughts

While there are apps available that may be better suited for dedicated file storage and sharing, I don’t think there’s any better app than drop.io for collaboration or incredibly easy file uploads and sharing.

I’ve used drop.io over the years and they’ve evolved quite a bit, adding amazing new features and capabilities. What I’ve mentioned here was only to demonstrate solutions for common file sharing and collaboration issues, however, drop.io is capable of so much more. If you haven’t already, drop.io is definitely worth checking out.

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