Were you a fan of Clippy, the anthropomorphised paperclip that followed you around with cutesy advice when you were trying to use Microsoft’s Word? If so, you’re in for a treat. Dropbox are so happy with their new collaboration feature, which lets multiple users collaborate on Word documents, they’ve decided to resurrect the little guy. As a Dropbox logo.
I was not a fan of Clippy, in case you were wondering. If ever there was a feature that belongs in the toolbar and not hovering over my document, breaking my concentration, it is this. So does Dropbox deserve a nomination for the tech Darwin award? Is Dropbox Clippy a mistake? Probably not.
Storage is being commoditized. Google offers Drive and free photo storage and competing with Amazon on margins is like competing with a fish in holding your breath under water. Dropbox need to create value-add services so that current customers, like myself, stay with them. We already collaborate on documents on Dropbox at Datasmoothie, so this is a useful addition if it works. And Dropbox are right to have it hover over the document, Clippy-style, so that we notice it. Sure there should be a button to relegate Clippy to the toolbar but this is an interesting attempt to differentiate from the competition.
As a user I was annoyed. But in general, I am impressed.