Jordan Singer

Balloon - A drop box for your Dropbox

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Mike Acler
I love the idea. The only problem is that the interface is not communicating sufficiently what's going on the screen / what should I do. E.g. I should drop files here, now I can go away because they were successfully uploaded and so on.
Jordan Singer
@uxboy Thanks Michal! We were going for simplicity, but you're totally right as far as how it can get confusing. Thanks for the feedback!
Braden Hamm
@robinraszka @uxboy Imagine sending someone that link without context.
Graham Macphee
This is a really nice concept! I love the simplicity. Could you explain how it's different from Dropbox's own 'file requests' feature?
Shiv
@gmph Thank you Graham :) Honestly we've been ideating and working on this for quite sometime. Even before the file requests feature ( I believe that was rolled out on Jun 17th). With balloon, its more of custom links supporting multi file uploads. Comes with a nice little image preview too! In the next version, we will be rolling out a password protection feature too. Let us know if you have any other questions!
Jordan Singer
@gmph Graham, Balloon and Dropbox file requests aren't too dissimilar. Balloon is just a friendlier and more playful 3rd party version of it. But with plans to integrate other cloud services, it will grow beyond Dropbox file requests capabilities.
Taylor Edmiston
@gmph Another difference is that Dropbox's File Requests send you an email when new files are uploaded.
Graham Macphee
@jsngr Supporting multiple third-party services for uploading might be interesting too! For example if someone had a Google Drive folder with photos from an event and you had a Dropbox folder, making transferring between those services as simple as Balloon is now would be nice.
Jens Segers
Cool idea, but I feel that it is not explained very well in the homepage and when others receive the balloon link :)
Roger Dickey
@jenssegers Hmm yeah, I don't understand what it is or does.
Jordan Singer
@rogerdickey @jenssegers We pushed an update just now that makes the homepage details section more visible. Was that the issue before? Thanks!
Jack Smith
@jsngr @jenssegers still doesn't make sense to me
Jordan Singer
@_jacksmith @jenssegers What can I help clear up?
Alibek Datbayev
@jsngr @jenssegers yeah, I think I didn't get the idea as well. Why should I upload my wedding photos to Balloon if I can do that with Dropbox?
Chris Macho
Fucking love this.
Chris Macho
@chrismacho I get what people are saying about the messaging lacking a little clarity, but it's not as bad as people are making it out to be. I knew exactly what it was when I arrived.
Jordan Singer
@chrismacho Chris, thanks for the kind words! We're glad :)
Evan Varsamis
love the idea although it took me 3+ minutes to realize how it works.
Shiv
@evanvar Thank you for the feedback Evan :) We are working on making it more intuitive.
Jamie Barton
Great concept although I'd feel more secure with a random URL given to me I could share instead of creating a name someone else could guess. I don't know how I feel giving the world write access to my Dropbox.
Shiv
@notrab Thank you Jamie :) We will be rolling out password protection for write access pretty soon. We have made creating and deleting balloons as easy as possible. So once you feel you have received your files, you can simple delete the balloon from your dashboard and the link will be no longer active for upload. Hope that helps :)
Christer Papanicolaou
@notrab I agree with Jamie. I tried creating a folder called test something and it told me the folder name was taken. So i picked another one, but since i knew this other folder existed already, i just typed it into the url and uploaded .rtf describing how it got there. This should be controlled more so you dont idiots like me uploading random files to ppl's dropboxes. :) Random hash names for the url would be a big help. Great idea though! Love it :)
Jack Smith
I thought that DropBox already announced this functionality recently? Isn't that what "file requests" does? As others have said. I dont' think your website really explains what you do at all. It would be great if you could show some screenshots or something.
Jordan Singer
@_jacksmith It is in fact very similar. But with the opportunity to support more than just Dropbox, Balloon becomes more versatile, and a friendlier and more playful version of it. Can you elaborate more on what you're finding confusing? If the tagline or homepage copy isn't doing it justice, something isn't right. Have you tried it? Just connect your Dropbox, create a Balloon, and share it so that people can send you files directly to your Dropbox, that's all :) Send me something to give it a try https://balloon.io/jordan
Jack Smith
@jsngr I didn't want to connect my account before knowing what it does. the example is helpful. So to understand, presently there's actually no difference vs Dropbox file requests, but in the future you'd support more platforms, which would be the difference?
Jordan Singer
@_jacksmith That would be correct.
Hoan Do
fucking great idea!!!
Andy Willis
Sadly, I'm from the generation where I need to know what something does before I know whether it will be any use to me :-(
Shiv
@dotcomdude Hi Andy! We are here to help you with any questions you have :)
Jordan Singer
Balloon is a drop box for your Dropbox. Create a Balloon, share the link, and let others upload straight to your Dropbox. There's no signup for senders, and no need for you to manually download files anymore. I've found it a surprisingly easy way to send yourself files instead of emailing them to yourself, etc. Send me something! https://balloon.io/jordan
Michal Zygar
That's awesome, I love the simplicity. Would it be possible for guest to see what's in the balloon? P.S.I encountered some issues with drag'n'drop on Safari9.0 (i had to click the balloon to upload file)
Jordan Singer
@mzygar Thanks Michal! Sorry about that, I'll work on a fix!
Rajat Vaghani
I love this concept! All the best :)
☀︎Mitco☀︎
Great idea. Simple and useful.
Kevin Mullett
Freaking awesomesauce! Great job team. Suggestions: Some help icons, even if screened back, for those that don't get simple interfaces. An X, esc, or cancel when editing a balloon name. The ability to set expiration (5min, 30min, 1day, etc), upload size limit on each balloon, and maybe even file type, in addition to the password option already mentioned.
Jordan Singer
@kmullett Thanks Kevin, this is all great stuff. We're adding it to the list!
Shiv
Hello Product Hunters! Thank you for the amazing response. Balloon is a drop box for your Dropbox. Share your Balloon to receive files, collect photos from an event, and so much more. Files go straight to your Dropbox and accessible on any device. No more signups and no more manual downloads. Jordan and I wanted something like this badly for ourselves to use and then we decided to make it open for all. Our core idea was to make sending and receiving files super simple and super easy to use. The possibilities are endless. A teacher could create a balloon for a particular assignment and share it with all the students. Something similar to balloon.io/Harvard/CS345/Assignment1 It is also a tool for anonymous file sharing. A company can create a feedback balloon and lets any customer share their feedback without having them signup/login. Future updates : Password protection. Multiple cloud services. Try it out and give us your feedback or any feature request :) Or you can send them privately to balloon.io/shiv too ;)
Ouriel Ohayon
@shivkanthb stupid question: do apps who connect to my dropbox have access somehow to my dropbox files? can you read them?
Jordan Singer
@ourielohayon @shivkanthb That's not a stupid question :) And nope! only read/write access to the Balloon.io folder.
Ouriel Ohayon
@jsngr @shivkanthb read/write access means you *could* read my files no? or did i miss something?
Jordan Singer
@ourielohayon @shivkanthb We only have read/write access to the files in your Balloon.io folder, not your entire Dropbox. We *could* read the files in your Balloon.io folder, but we don't :)
Ouriel Ohayon
@jsngr @shivkanthb great. but how do i know you won't ? i just have to believe you? [sorry just trying to understand]
Taylor Edmiston
I know a lot of people commented on the UX being not intuitive, but I actually really liked it. Super simple, fast, snappy. As far as functionality goes, I don't know that I'll use over Dropbox File Requests for 2 reasons: 1. It feels weird to not know who uploaded a given file (seems susceptible to attack). 2. I really like the notifications Dropbox sends when a new file is added.
Shiv
@kicksopenminds Thank you Taylor :) So, we will be rolling out a password protect feature pretty soon along with a native ios app for managing your balloons. Later versions include expanding to other cloud services as well. Does any of these features interest you ? we would love to know.
Marc Seitz
YOYOYO my friend @maccosmo just did https://balloon.io/🎈 SUPER META!!!! @rrhoover loves meta!
Shlomo Fellig
I just needed something like this yesterday! What kind of security protects file transfers? Are they transferred through your servers or directly to Dropbox?
Jordan Singer
@shlomofellig Thanks Shlomo. We are working to ensure that Balloon's aren't attacked by a singular IP. We go through our server first, then to Dropbox.
Glen One N
LOVE the idea.... but maybe you missed off the explainers? #sadtimes
Jordan Singer
@cute_life I'm afraid some people's issues were that they weren't scrolling down on the homepage, we've just pushed a fix!
Tomer Garzberg
The onboard process is good, if you essentially write a few words on the balloon creation screen, it'll be less of a 'guessing game' to first time users. Regardless, the concept is super cool!