Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2010, and the events it describes were current then, including Drop.io’s shutdown planned for 15 December 2010, Twitter’s ranking as the second social network by number of users and its plan to grow its workforce by 30%.
Just yesterday, the Drop.io blog announced that the company has been acquired by Facebook. Drop.io is a service for sharing all kinds of files privately over the internet. Its founder, Sam Lessin, will join Facebook’s current staff to develop the company’s advanced technology within the social network.
Anyone with a Drop.io account will have to retrieve their files before 15 December, the date on which all users’ data and files will be deleted, accounts included. Drop.io will cease to exist as such and become part of Facebook’s technology.
This is another acquisition for Facebook, both in new technology and development and in a new programmer of Sam Lessin’s calibre.
It comes on top of the news that Facebook has now taken Google’s place as the best company to work for in terms of working conditions.
Meanwhile, Twitter, the second social network by number of users, has announced that it plans to increase its workforce by 30% to continue the changes it is making to the network, which is becoming more and more like Facebook.
Facebook has joined the trend of acquiring several complementary services for its network every month, and I imagine we will see them rolled out little by little.
Featured image: Coolcaesar at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
