A New Use for Dropbox

The team behind one of Softpedia’s favorite freeware apps, Dropbox, has updated its blog with a rather interesting story on how people can use the cross-platform software to their advantage. As some of you may know, Dropbox is an online backup and sharing solution for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux that comes in both free and paid version.

“We occasionally ask our users to tell us about their Dropbox experiences. While we are continually flattered by people who praise us for rescuing their homework and work presentations, we’re especially touched to be a part of the significant moments of peoples’ lives, whether it be graduations, weddings or births. The Dropbox team is no exception. Though we’ve certainly had our share of rescues-via-Dropbox, we’re still caught by surprise when these moments hit close to home,” the Dropbox team says.

“Our CTO Arash Ferdowsi was born and raised in America, but his family has roots in Iran,” the post continues. “Arash and his family occasionally make trips back to visit, but his aunt and cousins, the Nahids, made the most recent visit to Tehran near the beginning of June. On June 12, the disputed Iranian presidential election results set off a string of protests around the country. At the height of these demonstrations, e-mail, text messaging and web services such as Facebook and Twitter were unavailable. With no other means to communicate with family back in the States, Ms. Nahid then thought to use Dropbox as a solution, which luckily was still accessible.”

Jon Ying of the Dropbox team then explains that, “using a .txt file in a shared folder with family, the Nahids were able to devise a faux messaging system to leave updates about the ongoing situation in Iran and allow others to know they were safe.” While this is surely not the first time someone using Dropbox has attempted this, it sure helps to note yet another use for the software. The team then sends its best regards to the Nahids and says it is glad to hear Dropbox came through for them as a communication solution.

How about you? Found any interesting uses for Dropbox?