Drop.io. On the face of it, this new service looks like just another file sharing service, but don’t be fooled, peeps. Under the hood, the developers have thrown together a bunch of very cool tools which make this a very cool application indeed and way way beyond just file sharing. 

For starters it’s instant to use, if you just want to share a file fast with someone without sending it via email or FTP. Just give the share (aka a drop) a name, upload the file/s (up to 100MB for the free version), add a password if you want and press Drop It. That’s it. You can specify how long the file will stay live, and whether others can add to the share space, and then send the access URL (e.g. http://drop.io/redferret) to your chums so they can download the material.

Where it all gets very interesting is when you start to check out the other features you can add or use around the core file share. For example you can use your space as a sort of communal blog, and give anyone the option to add, annotate or upload different files on a rolling diary basis. People can contribute files of any type via email (e.g. sending an email to [email protected]), leave voice mail messages at the drop (e.g. by calling 646-495-9203 x 58464) or even send it a fax. There’s a conference call facility associated with each drop too, which may have something to do with team collaboration I guess.

The privacy issue is tackled by allowing the admin of the drop to set passwords and protect the files from public view if necessary. The only thing that’s missing seems to be the ability to associate privacy features to individual files, at the moment settings apply to everything in a particular drop. All drop materials can be bookmarked, shared via RSS and subscribed to via email, so there’s plenty of flexibility in getting the material spread around your friends and family or co-workers.

All in all, a great application, well designed and chock full of usefulness in all sorts of ways. The only small criticism I would say is that it’s hard to find all the functionality of the service unless you hunt around the site, which is a shame. But it’s a small quibble and easily fixed with a new explanation or tour page somewhere prominent. Yep, this is definitely one to watch. Nice one.