More Storage – Same Price, Limited Time!
Times are tough and it’s no secret there’s pressure on all of us to be more efficient at work and at home. With that in mind, Syncplicity would like to help. That’s why we’re so thrilled to announce a limited time promotion: sign up for a yearly account with us and get 100GB of storage for only $99.00 for the first year! That’s right, this means you can get twice as much space for sharing, syncing, backup, and anything else you like to do with Syncplicity, and pay no more than you would for our regular 50GB account!
If you don’t already have a Syncplicity account, browse over to http://www.syncplicity.com/promo and create one now. If you already do, but you’d like to take advantage of this offer and upgrade to an annual plan, just visit https://my.syncplicity.com/promo. This promotion ends July 2009.
Did you know Syncplicity is on Twitter? If you’d like to be the first to hear about announcements like this in the future and stay up-to-date on what’s happening with the Syncplicity team, follow us @ http://twitter.com/syncplicity.
Thanks for your support!
The Syncplicity Team
Mac Beta is out!
Today we are excited to announce the publicly available Syncplicity Mac Beta Client! With this release, Syncplicity users can share files between their Windows and Mac computers with ease. Any file changes made on one computer will sync to the other computer.
For those of you coming from backup products, there is no schedule option for Syncplicity. The client watches your files for changes and uploads the new versions immediately, it doesn’t wait a minimum of 4 hours like you may be used to. And for those using other ‘one folder’ sync products, you do not have to move all your documents to a new folder. Syncplicity will sync them wherever they are now.
Just like with the Windows version, any Mac folder can become a Syncplicity folder by right clicking the folder and adding it to Syncplicity. Once it’s a Syncplicity folder, the Syncplicity client will watch the folder for changes and immediately synchronize the changes to your other computers. New and updated files will be securely backed up by Syncplicity, past revisions will be available on the Syncplicity website, and the latest versions will be sync’ed to your other computers.
Our Windows users will immediately recognize the Syncplicity icon sitting pretty in the menu bar. Syncplicity communicates its status through the menu icon and the grayed lines in the pop-down menu. For the geekier users, you can find out what Syncplicity is up to by watching the trace window.
If you have a Mac, give the new beta a whirl. As this is a beta, please send us feedback!
Happy Sync’ing!
Isaac
The Beta period is over!
It was a long night back on April 15th, the day we first unveiled Syncplicity to the world as a Beta service. We’ve been working on the product for about a year at that point and releasing its Beta version was a culmination of many sleepless nights, heated feature discussions, and personal bonds we forged in making our vision a reality. We weren’t sure how things were going to turn out – no one ever does – but that only added to our excitement and drive to make Syncplicity succeed.
Fast forward about six and a half months to today, November 3rd. There are twice as many of us now and we’re still hiring (apply on our Jobs page and look out for new openings soon!). We’re fortunate to be backed by a fantastic venture firm here in San Francisco and can’t wait to use the funds to deliver an even better service to you, our users. And we’re delighted to announce that we’re leaving the Beta label behind and launching a release version Syncplicity! We’ve dedicated the last few months to making sure the service was ready for prime time – expanded our infrastructure, sped up the service, and fixed the last few bugs still lurking around. We hope you like it!
Starting today, you can also subscribe to one of Syncplicity’s paid plans. If you’ve been keeping track of our plans around this, you’ll notice a few changes we’re making – changes we think you’re going to like. Our basic paid plan is now 25% larger (starts at 50GB) and if you tell your friends about Syncplicity, we’ll add an extra 2GB to your paid account for the first three that subscribe.
Our free plan isn’t going anywhere and is getting a bit of a makeover as well. All free users start off with 2GB, but we’ve made it easy to get that number up to 5GB, and even 7GB. How? Invite three friends and we’ll add 1GB to your account for each one who signs up.
Help us spread the word about Syncplicity and we’ll make sure you and your friends are getting one of the best deals out there. That’s right – unlike before, your friends will get 4GB free accounts and extra 5GB in their paid accounts if they decide to give Syncplicity a try based on your recommendation! This is a limited time offer though, so don’t delay!
Our special thanks go to all of our existing Beta users who have given us their invaluable feedback in the form of suggestions, bug reports, and even the occasional crash report. We appreciate it! As a small token of our gratitude, we’ll start your free accounts at 5GB and paid accounts at 60GB if you subscribe by the end of the year. Note that we’ll also keep your accounts unlimited until November 17th in order to give you plenty of time to make a decision as to which plan to choose.
As always, we’re looking forward to your feedback and working with you to make Syncplicity even better!
The Syncplicity Team
Infrastructure Upgrade
At 5 PM PDT on Tuesday, September 23rd, Syncplicity will be performing a major scheduled upgrade. Given the size and complexity of the change, we expect the transition to take about seven hours. During this time, your computer will be unable to synchronize with Syncplicity and my.syncplicity.com will be unavailable. www.syncplicity.com and blog.syncplicity.com will continue to be available.
You can leave your client running during this time — it will automatically reconnect and resume synchronizing when we are back up. And of course, your data and account information will be kept safe & secure throughout the process.
Our team will be working throughout the night until this migration is complete — we will be twittering updates (http://twitter.com/syncplicity) along the way. Feel free to say hi if you’re online too.
For those of you wondering what we’re up to, here’s the scoop:
Behind the scenes, Syncplicity runs on some pretty serious hardware. Part of my job is to keep it running smoothly and plan for future growth.
The Syncplicity servers handle millions of requests every day. During the past few months, Syncplicity has been growing quickly and our servers have been under an increasingly high load. Even with several hardware upgrades, we’ve still had some brownouts during which some of you were unable to get the instant synchronization we built into the service. Like you, we notice when our tray icon turns gray.
A month ago, we embarked on a plan to perform a major refresh of our infrastructure to eliminate these problems and ensure ample room to grow. We’ve invested heavily in new servers and a new architecture that we’re finally ready to unveil. Our server count is tripling. Individual servers will be more powerful.
For example, as part of the upgrade, all our database servers will be moving to quad-proc, quad-core servers. Watching 16 cores in action is intense. We’re also scaling out to increase redundancy and improve reliability and scalability. This translates into a better experience for all users and as a small bonus, I know I’ll be sleeping better at night. 
Thanks,
Isaac
VP of Technology
PC World Sync Shootout: Syncplicity’s #1!
PC World has just published the results of its synchronization, backup, and sharing product shootout (available at PC World and published in the September ‘08 issue).
“With its breadth of features, ease of use, and added bonuses such as version control, Syncplicity is my top pick among sync services.” – Scott Dunn, PC World
Needless to say, we’re ecstatic that PC World has chosen Syncplicity as the number one choice over others in the area, especially against such established competitors!
We’ve always been huge believers in listening closely to users and delivering the best experience we could that everyone, from our moms to the geekiest of geeks, could use. It’s great to hear such strong validation from such a respected source. Time for some champagne!
Cheers!
Leonard, Ondrej, and Isaac
Syncplicity in Lifehacker’s Top 5 File Syncing Tools
We’re honored! Lifehacker, “an award-winning, daily blog that features tips, shortcuts, and downloads that help you get things done smarter and more efficiently”, is running its popular Hive Five feature series on File Synchronization tools this week and Syncplicity is in the Top 5!
Syncplicity made the list after a few days of “qualifiers” when Lifehacker readers had a chance to root for their favorite tool. Now anyone can vote for any of the five contenders in a real poll and we hope you vote for Syncplicity!
Read all about it and vote at http://lifehacker.com/398696/five-best-file-syncing-tools. If you end up voting for someone else, be sure to let us know why in the Forums – we care about your feedback more than anything else!
Thanks for voting!
The Syncplicity Team
Power outage at Rackspace
Update @ 8pm PST: Everything is back up and the service is running normally. Send an e-mail to support@syncplicity.com if you’re running into any problems.
A cluster of servers hosted at Rackspace got knocked offline due to a power failure at Rackspace. Included in this cluster are the Syncplicity web servers as well as the main Syncplicity database servers. We’re waiting on Rackspace to stabilize our rack and are working with Rackspace right now to make sure everything comes back online normally. We’ll post updates as we hear them.
Last update from Rackspace:
July 9th 2008 — At approximately 5:00 P.M. CDT, our DFW data center experienced a brief loss of utility power that caused a transfer over to generator as designed. During this transition, some of the chillers did not start up correctly and temperatures within certain areas of the DC began to rise to the 90’s. The issue has been isolated and temperatures are decreasing steadily. We are investigating this issue and will provide future updates as they come available.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you or your customers.
Access your files from your iPhone
2/9/10 edit: Looking to use Syncplicity on the iPhone? Check out MKSync, a third-party application, on the iTunes store!
Today, we’re excited to announce that all the files you’re backing up & sync’ing with Syncplicity are available from your iPhone! We made an optimized version of our website just for our iPhone (and iPod Touch) users. The website currently lets you view documents, photos, and hear your mp3s.
If you have an iPhone, here’s what you’ll see when you login and try to open the San Francisco Muni Map PDF:
To view the site, navigate to https://m.syncplicity.com on your iPhone. The https://my.syncplicity.com site redirects if it detects you’re on an iPhone. And, be sure to add it to your home screen for easier access by clicking the plus icon and clicking “Add to Home Screen”.
Let us know if you’re using it and how you’d like to see it extended.
Cheers,
Isaac
Syncplicity Pricing
The Short Story (for those of you in a hurry)
Update: We haven’t forgotten about those of you in our beta! If you had a Syncplicity beta account as of June 30th and you choose to convert to a free account, it will have twice the normal space (4 GB). If you choose to convert to an Individual Subscription, it will have ten additional gigabytes of space for 50 GB total. New beta accounts without an invite code will have 2 GB for free accounts and 45 GB for Individual Subscriptions.
Many of you have been asking for final pricing and giving tons of great feedback on our initial pricing plans. We’ve been working hard to understand and incorporate your feedback. I’m happy to announce that we’ve finished crunching all of the numbers. Below is Syncplicity’s pricing and account types:
Free: Free forever. Allows up to two computers, 5 revisions per file or 30 days of previous revisions (whichever is less), up to 10,000 files, and 2 GB of storage. The free account expires after 60 days of inactivity.
Individual Subscription: $9.99 per month or $99 per year. Includes unlimited computers, unlimited file versions, unlimited number of files, and 40 GB of storage.
Additional Storage: $9.99 per month or $99 per year for 50 GB of storage. You can add this to your account as many times as you’d like to have even more storage.
An important part of Syncplicity’s growth has been through word of mouth and friends inviting friends. I’m happy to say Syncplicity now has a referral program as well where you can get additional storage bonuses added to your account for every new person that you refer to Syncplicity.
Full details are available here.
What Happened to Unlimited Storage?
Initially, we started with a plan to charge around $20 per month for unlimited storage. The value of Syncplicity is the experience it provides and the fact that it makes your files “active”, not the “passive” storage you can get by using a USB hard drive or an FTP site. Our aim with unlimited storage was to move the worry and cost away from storage in order to focus on the experience being delivered.
With your help, we’ve come up with pricing that allows for a free account and a monthly price as low as $8.25 while still providing enough storage that the basic plan covers the majority of users.
We got lots of feedback from across the Syncplicity community that really boiled down to three themes:
- A trial isn’t enough. There needs to be a free version.
- Many of you felt you don’t have enough data to take advantage of an unlimited plan.
- There should be a lower initial price than $20 per month.
With these three pieces of feedback in mind, we went back to the drawing board to address it. While this new pricing may mean Syncplicity is more expensive for a few of you, for the vast majority of users, the price of Syncplicity is lower than before and we’re now able to offer free accounts.
We hope you like the new pricing. We worked hard to incorporate your feedback and we hope this new pricing addresses much of the comments you’ve given us!
Leonard
Open and edit files in web apps right from your desktop
Updated: Click to read Picnik’s, Zoho’s, and Scribd’s blog entries about Syncplicity.
Announcing new products and features is always the most exciting time for all of us here at Syncplicity. That’s why today was especially fun. We got to launch something big! The big news? Syncplicity is now integrated with Zoho, Picnik, and Scribd in addition to Google Docs and Facebook.
From the very beginning, Syncplicity’s vision has always been to turn your data into something you never even have to think about. When you consider all the places you use it today, you’ll realize that getting it to where you need it, keeping it up-to-date in all the places you use it, and having constant access to it is no small feat. We live in a world that revolves around digital information; it was about time someone made dealing it with it as easy as it once used to be.
Why has dealing with data become so darn complicated anyway? The fact many of us now use multiple computers and devices on a daily basis certainly played a role in it. But that’s only one part of the picture. Even more significant is the rise of the web and its transition from a place where you primarily publish content to a place where you also create it. As the web becomes a serious companion to our desktops and we find ourselves creating and consuming content in both places, keeping it all in sync is a Herculean task.
That’s why we built Syncplicity and why today’s announcement is so exciting. With this release, Syncplicity lets you open and edit your files in any application you like – whether that application is installed on your desktop or lives in your web browser. There are no uploads and downloads to worry about, no additional places to keep your data in, and no out-of-date copies of your files lurking around the web. All your data is always in one place and always available on your computer, just as you’re used to.
While we designed the system to be open and extensible so any website can offer their services to you right on your desktop, we also picked and partnered with three industry leading web applications that you can start taking advantage of right away. They are:
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Scribd, the best place to store, share, publish, and view your documents.
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Zoho, the leading web-based office suite with an unparalleled feature set.
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Picnik, the simplest to use, yet most powerful photo editing site on the web.
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Here is how easy we made it: just right click on any supported document or photo, open the Syncplicity menu, and click Preview in Scribd iPaper, Edit in Zoho, or Edit in Picnik. Syncplicity will automatically open your chosen application in a web browser, load your document into it, and, when you’re done, sync any changes you make right back to your desktop. There are no accounts to create, no usernames and password to enter, and nothing to upload or download. Have I also mentioned it’s all free?
Both worlds – the offline world on your desktop and the online one in your web browser – have a lot to offer. With Syncplicity, there’s no need to move to one or the other exclusively. We’ll bridge them together for you so you can take the best from both.
Let us know what you think, what work and what doesn’t, and what other web applications you’d like to see integrated with Syncplicity. If you’re a company or a developer interested in becoming available to users on their desktops, get started at https://my.syncplicity.com/developers.
See you at the forums!
Ondrej