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Jul
4
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Is MyDropBox.com Vaporware?
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: blackboard, rants.
We’ve been looking at MyDropBox.com, trying to gather more info about their “Peer Re:Mark” peer review building block for Blackboard. It sounds rather interesting, and we’d love to try it out to evaluate for use on campus. The technology has become secondary, though, because the company has been completely unresponsive through the communication channels they provide on their website. I can only assume that the company is no longer viable, and/or that the product is vapour.
Patti tried contacting them 2 weeks ago for more information. She patiently filled out the form on their website, hoping to get some additional information about the product, maybe a demo, and perhaps a quote for deploying it on campus. No response.
So, I decided to see if maybe they were just blowing off peons, and only responding to “important” sounding people. So, I promoted myself to “Vice President, Educational Technology” here at UCalgary, and filled in the form myself. Several days later… No response. I guess I need to demote myself back down to “Lowly EdTech Geek”, but I kinda like the ring of VP-EdTech…
Anyway, here’s a clue for MyDropBox, who apparently don’t respond to the only communication channel they provide on their own website. When people are contacting you, asking for more information, probably trying to give you money, it’s a Good Idea™ to at least send an autoresponse email. It’s an Even Better Idea™ to actually, oh, I don’t know… RESPOND to the people who are most likely to give your company money.
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4 Responses to “Is MyDropBox.com Vaporware?”
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That’s why you had to invent your fancy executive title, Mr. Normal — you simply don’t have a head for business. Haven’t you heard the old maxim, “always leave them wanting more”?
@Leon: They must have graduated from the Lighips School of Global Supremacy. They have the proper demeanor, and they definitely left me wanting more. For a few minutes. After that, I started leaning more towards wanting much, much less. Which is another thing promoted by Lighips Global Supremacy…
We’ve been through a similar period of non-existent communication from this company. And we’re currently a paying customer.
This combined with reliability/performance issues with their copy detection service has not created a positive impression.
It is interesting to see that others are having a similar experience.
DISCLAIMER: I work for iParadigms, LLC, the parent company of Turnitin;
From our understanding, MyDropBox is no longer working directly with Institutional customers - they have sold their technology to Blackboard, which offers an enhancement to Blackboard customers but does not seem to leave any service for non-Blackboard users.
We here at Turnitin understand that this may create difficulty for non-Blackboard users, and we are happy to work with these users to see if we can create a solution to match their needs - please contact us directly for more information. I didn’t want to post a quasi-commercial post on this blog, but noone had responded to this thread for 3+ weeks so it seems to make sense to clarify the situation.
Thank you for your time!