dropify

We are sorry to inform you that Dropify will discontinue its service.

Due to Facebook's latest changes to its platform, our service will become obsolete on November 5, 2014. Like-Gating will no longer be possible, thus completely disabling our core premium feature. There is nothing we can do to prevent this move by Facebook. For more information, please refer to Facebook's official statement:

https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2014/08/07/Graph-API-v2.1/

What does this all mean to you?

The Dropify website and your account will remain active until October 31, 2014. This will give you time to download all your files – if needed.

If you are a premium user your paid subscription will automatically be cancelled. Your credit card will no longer be charged. Your credit card and billing information will be deleted once we shut down the entire service on November 1, 2014.

On November 1, 2014, all publisher profiles including all hosted files will be deleted. You don't have to request a cancellation of your publisher profile or manually perform the deletion of your files.

We want to take this opportunity to thank you for being a loyal customer who helped us build out this great platform. Apparently, all good things must come to an end.

In January 2013, we launched Dropify with the intention of presenting quality free downloads in beautiful and engaging fashion, while helping our publishers get more fans on Facebook. Social integration has always been a key component since day one. However, despite numerous great success stories, the past few months have proven that there was still room for improvement, which is why we went back to the drawing board.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce the public release of Dropify Download 2.0.

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At its core, Dropify is about your free digital content. Your free downloads are a valuable asset to engage your followers and customers at almost no cost. Since the launch of Dropify, music artists, DJs, authors, photographers, and many other content creators have reached thousands of new people with the downloads they provided via the Dropify platform. We’ve seen some brands double their Facebook Likes in almost no time; all due to quality content that has gone viral with the aid of Dropify.

The driving purpose behind Dropify Download 2.0 is to provide our publishers with a more intuitive presentation of their downloads, and advanced social integration that always keeps these downloads rolling – all in a modern “landing page”-like interface that makes downloading your files a real pleasure. At the same time, we want people to intuitively navigate through your Dropify download, like it’s natural to them. 

Dropify Download 2.0 comes loaded with a set of new features. The complete download presentation has been revamped, from the overall flow, user comments, social integration, recommendations, and more.

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Features

We wanted to take a second to point out the most striking updates that we think you’ll love:

The Flow – In version 1.0, people had to click “get file” (step 1), like (step 2 / given that Like Gating was active), recommend (step 3), and click “download” (step 4) in order to actually receive the free file. Obviously, this was NOT what you’d consider a convenient user experience. The new flow is smooth as silk: click “download file” (step 1) and instantly receive the file! That’s right, no more steps in between, unless the publisher has activated Like Gating (step 2). We’ve completely banned the fourth step and put the recommend to friends screen as the third and final step (or 2nd / given that Like Gating is inactive). It makes so much more sense, as people can now actually experience the content they just downloaded, before recommending it to friends who might be into it as well.

UI / Design – We felt that the old Download was too generic and didn’t look right, especially when there wasn’t a quality cover artwork attached to your Drop. The new interface is all about a clear structure and it’s visually rich. There is a top bar which hosts all actions the user can perform (Download, Like, Share, Subscribe). These are visible at all times, and no longer part of the click-through process. The center of the page visually presents the download itself, displays people who already downloaded the file and lists comments that were written about it. The sidebar offers a file description and recommendations, based on what you’re looking at. All interaction happens within the cover area, ensuring that all other key options always stay in their original place.

User Comments – It was about time! Never download a file again, that no one else would actually recommend. People can now comment on each download, giving you an idea of its quality. Of course, you can join the conversation yourself right off the bat. Just enter your comment and submit it. No need to create an extra account; you do it all via your Facebook user that you’re connected with to the Dropify app. As with any other quality commenting system, you can up-vote and down-vote other user comments.

Visually Recommend – You can now visually select 1-5 friends from your Facebook friends list that you feel might be interested in the free file you just downloaded. Simply click on one of the profile images of your suggested friends, or enter a specific name into the search field.

SoundCloud Integration – This comes in handy for all music artists and DJs on Dropify. If you have a SoundCloud profile and want to enable people to listen to your free music prior to downloading it, all you have to do is enter your Track URL or Track ID in your Drops’ settings. An audio play button will be placed on the cover, allowing for a one-click audio preview. Be sure to update your existing Drops with the SoundCloud preview, by adding the URL via "Dashboard > Drop Details > Edit Content".

Social Sharing – Share the free download to all your favorite social network with a single click, copy its short URL, and email it to friends. No longer do you have to run through the complete download process. It’s right up top at all times.

Guest Downloads – It's now possible to let users, who don’t want to connect to the Dropify app, download your files. Guest Downloads can be activated in your Publisher Settings. It's located right below the Facebook settings. Please note: Facebook Like Gate does not work for guests. It's totally up to you though, whether or not you want to provide that option.

Live Preview

Check out these live Drops to see Dropify Download 2.0 in action:

DJ Set: Miguel Campbell – Cirque De La Nuit Boat Show

PSD: Facebook Fan Page GUI

PDF: Wella Professionals Dezibel Hair Styling Guide

Thank You

Dropify has always been built to provide publishers with a super easy way of providing their content and for people to discover and download this content in engaging fashion.

Your inspiring feedback – from publishers and users alike – is deeply woven into the fabric of Dropify Download 2.0. It have been your ideas that sparked this major update! Thank you for helping us achieve today’s result and your continued support.

Let us know what you think about Dropify Download 2.0 by commenting below or on Twitter (@Dropify).

Want to offer your own free downloads via Dropify? Get started for free at http://dropify.com.

There is a lot of negative buzz surrounding the redesign of iOS7. And yes, we didn’t like what we saw at first glance either. Such a fundamentally different approach can only come shocking at first, but let’s not waste further time to discuss those weird new homescreen icons. Let’s rather focus on what we think iOS7 does right and how this can be applied to optimize a popular app like Facebook.

After the WWDC keynote we’ve reviewed Apple’s developer documentation for iOS7 to see how we can optimize our mobile web app for the new operating system. To better understand the design decisions that went into the operating system we had a try at updating the native Facebook app to the new design.

Apple describes the iOS7 themes as follows:

Deference. The UI helps users understand and interact with the content, but never competes with it.

Clarity. Text is legible at every size, icons are precise and lucid, adornments are subtle and appropriate, and a sharpened focus on functionality motivates the design.

Depth. Visual layers and realistic motion heighten users’ delight and understanding.

Applying those themes to the Facebook app, we tried to remove visual clutter and optimize legibility with bigger font sizes. Apple is introducing Dynamic Type with iOS7, which will help scaling text and allow users to set a prefered text size for all their applications. The use of Helvetica Light within the operating system earned alot of negative critique for being hard to read for longer text parts, but for the short Facebook posts we think it looks quite solid. Removing the icons for Like, Comment and Share was a try at emulating the look of the native iOS7 apps. What we really like about the new UI is the use of transparency. If you look closely at our mockup, you will notice the sample image we used expands underneath the new transparent navigation bar in iOS7. We kept this mockup very basic, but still we think it makes Facebook a better app with the content being the clear focus and UI chrome taking a backseat.

Click Here to view a comparison between iOS6 & iOS7 at 100%.

One thing we also need to mention is the importance of the native iOS7 UI Dynamics. They will play a big role in the redesign of Facebook. If you’ve watched the launch of Facebook Phone you saw how much effort they put into making the interface more pleasant and playful with the help of animation and physics. These kind of physics are now available natively for all iOS developers with the new UI Dynamics. You can see how it works by checking out this video of the new messages application and watch how the chat bubbles seem to be sticky when scrolling:

Another interesting video is this demo of a developer who applied some UI Dynamics to his test application:

Dropify’s core strength is its seamless integration with Facebook and their Open Graph. Not only does Dropify serve as an awesome visibility booster for your files, but it also makes them go viral, gaining you new fans in the process. Recent cases impressively have shown how much attraction you can gain with cool content and the use of Dropify.

So, what about Twitter? Have we really restricted Dropify to only Facebook? Of course not. The following gives you an idea of how Dropify can also get you Twitter mentions and even followers.

Tweets by people who download your Drop

Dropify’s download flow (the process of downloading your Drop) always ends with a screen that allows people to share your Drop-URL on Twitter and Pinterest. We noticed that a great amount of people actively uses these options. Given that you entered your Twitter handle in your account settings, the share dialogue will look like this:

A default message is generated which includes your Twitter handle, referencing to you as the publisher, along with the type and title of your Drop.

Note: If you don’t enter your Twitter handle in the publisher settings, the dialogue will show your generic publisher name instead.

Follow the publisher

Once the user’s posting of his Tweet is confirmed, he’s suggested to follow the publisher on Twitter. Since the Tweet implies a certain appreciation of the Drop, chances are good the user may also want to follow the publisher. He can do so via a single click.

Twitter link on the publisher’s profile

Your publisher profile will display a direct link to your Twitter profile, assuming that you've entered it in the publisher settings. People come across your Dropify publisher profile via different sources (e.g. the Drop’s description in a Facebook post).

We’re soon going to add even more Twitter linkage, further enhancing the integration of Twitter in Dropify.

Today, Dropify is pleased to announce an update to its service plans which we are making immediately available to all customers. There’s now more to Dropify for the same price you’ve been paying. In an ongoing effort to simplify our service, Dropify now has an easier to grasp feature structure throughout the plans available. Bigger Drops for Everyone First of all, we’ve doubled the maximum upload size per each file for all four plans, ranging from 50 MB (Free) to 100 MB (Small) and 500 MB (Medium), while concluding with 1 GB (Large). Ramped up Like Limits In addition to the unlimited Drop upload that comes with all plans (except the Free one), we’ve increased the Like limit across-the-board. Being one of the most beloved and powerful features of Dropify, we wanted to make it even more affordable to our publishers. As a result we’ve doubled the limit for Small and Medium to 10,000 and 50,000 Likes, respectively. This comes in handy for those who might already have been close to the limit. Keep watching your fan base grow without paying anything extra for a while.

If you’re into Jazz music you’ve maybe come across the wicked tunes of Atlanta-based saxophonist Darryl Reeves by now. Not only did he release his brilliant album “Mercury” last summer, but he also just recently followed up with a free mixtape titled “The Dillaquarium Mixtape” – a tribute to the great J Dilla.

By the time Reeves stumbled upon Dropify, he had roughly 1,700 fans on Facebook. His mixtape had already been promoted on several blogs and it was available for stream on SoundCloud and a few hosting services for regular download. Despite the mixtape getting nothing but praise, people hardly found the way to Reeves’ social profiles, including Facebook. Even those who probably would’ve loved to become a fan of his didn’t invest the time to manual look up his Facebook Page. The result? A lost opportunity.

Quick Facts

Drop Type: ZIP/MP3 (mixtape)

Fan Base: 1,700

Time Frame: 1 week

Total Downloads: 1,500

Viral Reach: 53,000

New Fans: 1,400

After reading our article on how to combine SoundCloud with Dropify for increased fan growth, Reeves gave Dropify a shot … with MAJOR impact!

In less than a week his Dropify dashboard displayed more than 1,500 individual downloads. Since Forced Like Gating had been activated, 1,400+ people who downloaded the mixtape became a fan of Darryl Reeves in the process. The other 100 people already had been a fan of his.

By being a subscriber to Dropify’s Small plan, Reeves SO FAR gained 1,400 new fans at just $9 total. That’s only HALF A CENT per new fan!!! Yes, this ain’t no spelling mistake. And let’s not forget that these fans are actually into his music, since they intentionally downloaded a Jazz mixtape. There is a good chance these people will actually interact on his Facebook Page, recommend his music and follow his career in general, since they are a truly engaged. Right now his Facebook Page counts 3,258 fans – almost twice as many as prior to using Dropify.

“I keep my ear to the street when it comes to connecting with new fans. After reading an article about Dropify on Hypebot I gave it a shot and gained 1,400 new facebook fans in less than a week. Dropify’s service is amazing!” – Darryl Reeves

To further spread the word, Reeves added the Dropify download tab to his Facebook Page, which also displays his current and future free music available on Dropify.

Clever as he his, Reeves also added a direct download link into the mixtape’s description on YouTube.

As an artist, band, DJ or producer using SoundCloud, people can listen to your music or sounds by playing your streams. This is what makes SoundCloud great; right now it may be considered the premier service for STREAMING music.

Why we are emphasizing streaming here? Because that's what SoundCloud primarily is: A community-based platform to listen to sounds by streaming them. 

Now, what if you want to provide your sounds for download? Yes, it's possible with SoundCloud, but they limit it to 100 downloads in their Free plan. Everything above that limit requires a paid plan. If your music is great, people will want to download it, so that free limit will be eaten up pretty quickly.

Leverage your SoundCloud downloads by using Dropify

By adding a Dropify download link to your SoundCloud Stream page you'll kill two birds with one stone: Not only will you no longer have to worry about download limits, but you will also be able to get new Facebook Fans in the process.

London-based DJ/producer Mr No Hands works the SoundCloud/Dropify combo to perfection.

Let's take his setup as an example:

1. His upcoming release, a remix of the Nashville Teens' "Tobacco Road", is currently available for STREAM on SoundCloud and for DOWNLOAD on Dropify.

2. On top of his track's description he posted the short-link to his Drop (the download of his song on Dropify).

3. Additionally, he customized the "Buy" link to read "FREE DOWNLOAD HERE", which also links to the Drop. (Note: Requires a paid SoundCloud subscription)

4. By activating Forced Like Gating (Optional vs. Forced Like Gating), people are required to Like the artist's Facebook Page in order to download the Drop.

5. Each download further promotes the track through viral distribution on Facebook as the downloading person instantly shares the activity with his Facebook friends via the News Feed and Activity Feed.

Summary: Stream on SoundCloud, Download on Dropify

The entire download process happens on Dropify, but is initiated on SoundCloud. File hosting, unlimited downloads and viral distribution are taken care of by Dropify.

When it comes to music or sound files, Dropify is not to be considered as a competitor to SoundCloud. In fact, it serves as a powerful way to boost your overall distribution to new heights and to attract new audiences to your music.

Already have your music on SoundCloud? Cool! Now put it on Dropify and add the download links to your Streams.

– – – – –

This is an important update to all publishers: Via Publisher Settings you can now install a dropify tab in your Facebook Page that hosts all your active Drops. All you have to do is select your desired Facebook Page and you’re good to go.

Whenever you drop a new file, dropify instantly adds it to the list of Drops in your download tab. You don’t have to do anything else, but watch your tab grow with each new Drop. Not only does the additional tab provide your Facebook fans with another engaging content tab, it’s also yet another step to making your Facebook Page a legit website replacement. Your Facebook Page already displays photos, videos, news and updates, user comments and other content via custom tabs. With dropify you can now add the missing piece of “hosted files” to your Page.

dropify automatically adds the new tab named “Free Downloads” in the fourth spot of your tab row. Of course you can swap its position and/or change its name and image like you’re used to from all your other tabs.

To keep things simple for your audience, the tab layout basically is a replication of your regular publisher profile on dropify. It includes a header with your profile image, your description, links to your Twitter and website, plus the option to subscribe to your profile.

View Live Example: The Find Magazine

Be sure to add this valuable extra tab to your Facebook Page right now to further increase your Drops reach and to offer your visitors even more compelling content.

Moving forward, we plan to release short but interesting case studies on some of our publishers’ Drops every now and then.

Today, we are taking a deeper look at Deliciously Organic, who provide great recipes featuring unprocessed, organic ingredients.

Right after the launch of dropify they dropped a small PDF (0.25 MB) titled “Paleo Weekly Meal Plan”. They kept the PDF design pretty simple, but provided a custom Drop image that grabs attention.

Let’s share the numbers upfront: 1,300 downloads of the Drop resulted in 450 new fans. That’s a great feat considering people were able to skip the Like button to directly receive the download.

Quick Facts

Drop Type: PDF (recipe)

Fan Base: 25k Facebook, 8k Twitter

Time Frame: 1 week

Total Downloads: 1,300

Viral Reach: 45,000

New Fans: 450

The question is: What made this Drop so successful?

Carrie from Deliciously Organic simply seemed to know how to utilize dropify’s power right from the start. After publishing her Drop, she instantly tweeted the download link to her 3,700 followers on Twitter. Next, she posted a nice and short recommendation on her Facebook Page, again linking to the Drop – showing the image and description provided via dropify. Her Facebook post earned 100 shares, 40 comments and 290 Likes – further spreading the word about the Drop.

Now you may think that 1,300 total downloads don’t appear to be that much, taking into consideration that her Page already had 25,000 fans, but that’s where another impressive figure comes into play: 450 new fans. That’s right, as stated above, the Drop has been responsible for 450 new fans in just over a week. We know the exact numbers, because Carrie enabled Like Gating for her Drop and the dashboard of her account reflects the total number of fans that were gained through the Like Gate.

That said, at least one third of her downloaders were “new” people, who learned about Deliciously Organic and the recipe through dropify. Thanks to the Activity and News Feed actions that dropify generates for each download, almost 45,000 people have seen the free recipe download thus far. That’s almost twice their total fan base. A regular Facebook Page post (not promoted) usually doesn’t reach more than 8-10% of your fans. Assuming that Carrie had put the download on a usual file hosting service and posted the URL on her Facebook Page, she wouldn’t have reached more than 2,000–3,000 people. With dropify she’s already outdid that number fifteen times; and the viral loop won’t stop here as each new download keeps it moving.

It’s fair to say that – right now – there’s no other Facebook promotion method being more cost-effective than dropify. Of course an existing user base on Facebook and Twitter serve well and the publisher is required to capitalize on it. However, even with a smaller audience you may achieve similar or even better results. It’ll probably just take a bit longer.

How’s your Drop performing? Share your success story with us.

As a publisher, having dropped some files, you have likely stumbled upon a feature titled "Like Gating". If not, just access your Dashboard and see the details of one of your Drops.

Like Gating is an awesome feature to grow your fan base in a hurry. Once enabled, your Drop download will be locked to people not liking your Facebook Page yet. That said, everybody who wants to grab your Drop needs to first Like your Page (it's done right within the download flow) in order to actually start the download.

Starting today, we officially provide two modes of Like Gating: Optional and Forced.

Optional Like Gating When activated, people can decide whether or not they want to Like your brand on Facebook. You leave this decision up to them. If your content is awesome and people dig your brand, they will most likely Like you anyway. However, since Like Gating is optional, they might also click the Skip link that's available and therefore avoid the Like.

View Live Example: Hexsagon – Dave Brubeck Beat Tape by The Find Magazine

Forced Like Gating When activated, people are actually forced to Like your Page in order to download your Drop. There is no way to avoid that step. If you feel that you're giving away a real banger and you want to grow your fan base by any means, that's your choice right there.

View Live Example: 2012 Holiday Road Trip Mixtape by NoiseTrade

Which mode should I choose? This one is totally up to you. Both features provide great value in terms of getting new fans. However, you may want to make that decision based on how valuable you feel your Drop is. Choose Optional Like Gating if your Drop is cool, but nothing you wouldn't have shared as a simple free download piror to dropify. Go with Forced Like Gating if you feel like your Drop is really special and an awesome giveaway that should at least earn a Like in return. Remember, each Drop case is different and you should ask yourself if you were willing to Like what you're offering if you saw it elsewhere.

Where do I find the Like Gating settings? As stated above, this feature is available for each of your Drops individually. Log in into your account and just click one of your Drops in the Dashboard overview. You find the Like Gating settings on the right hand side, right underneath your Drop cover image.

Hey folks, it's been roughly a week since dropify officially hit the internet.

For those of you who read about dropify for the very first time, here is a quick introduction:

dropify is a fun way for people to both publish and discover awesome free files.

After connecting your Facebook account with dropify you're ready to start your own file promotion. Just upload a file (MP3, MOV, JPG, PDF, DOC, we take it all…), add some meta information and hit publish.

To kick off the promotion, share your Drop (that's what we call files published through dropify) on your Facebook Page, via Twitter and with your friends.

As soon as someone downloads your Drop, we will create an Activity Feed and a News Feed post, visible for most of the downloader's friends. From there on you may see your Drop spread on Facebook as each new downloader increases the Drop's overall visibility. Hate the term or not, but that's the effect people consider as "viral".

What adds to dropify's value is the fact that its download experience is fully compatible with mobile devices, expanding its reach to the more than 600 million people who use Facebook on mobile.

We want artists, brands and other file owners to publish their digital giveaways via dropify, to give them the kind of recognition their work deserves.

To get some inspiration for your own first Drop, check out our Cases page or have a look at Drops that already have been published by other people.

By the way, we are offering a 30-day trial on all our plans right now. That said, you may now want to test dropify to its full potential without any risk. Happy Dropping :)

dropify's launch was picked up by quite a few blogs:

TechCrunch

The Next Web