Today, Drop.io is introducing a complete redesign of its hosting platform, which offers private file sharing, conference calling, fax receiving, blogging, collaboration, and media presentation features. Drop.io's new design better highlights and organizes the service's broad array of features for both admins and users; the update comes on the heels of a variety of other service enhancements.

Despite all the recently added features, Drop.io's fundamental approach of allowing users to quickly create "drops" without having to sign up or hand over any personal or registration details is still front and center. Drops are share points where users can post files, receive faxes, host conference calls, write blog posts, and more, all with granular privacy controls. Account registration is optional, but allows for greater control and longevity.

The company won't share any specific numbers on the status of its user or visitor base, but CEO and founder Sam Lessin told Ars Technica that "several million" Drop.io users have created drops to share "several million assets" since the service launched in August 2007.





Drop.io's default layout with the new redesign and a theme applied to spice things up



The most obvious change the redesign brings to live drop sites is a much cleaner layout that no longer overpowers users with options. Previously, many of Drop.io's functions, such as reorganizing a drop's asset view, adding content, and subscribing to e-mail alerts, were displayed prominently to new users, even to those who weren't logged in and couldn't add content except in cases where a drop admin allowed guests to make changes. Now, a drop's content is front and center for visitors—most of the viewing and sharing options are hidden under AJAXy tabs at the top. Contextual features, like buttons for adding content or the display of a drop's conference call and fax number, are revealed only to those with appropriate permissions, such as logged-in users, or guests if a drop is opened to the public.





The "System" view that takes a file organization approach,

allowing files to be sorted, separated by type, and renamed in batches



A basic set of themes were also recently introduced to Drop.io; these allow admins to spice up their drop's design in ways that go beyond the standard (and spartan) white layouts. With today's announcement, these themes get a bit more face time, since the redesigned layouts like Blog (a chronological view of asset additions), Media (assets grouped by types such as photos, text, and documents), and even System (best for sorting files manually and performing batch operations) can do a much better job of organizing assets and compartmentalizing content than the previous incarnations.





Drop.io's redesigned admin panel is a lot friendlier to new users as it organizes

the service's many features in a much more intuitive way



Drop.io's admin interface is also far more intuitive, as the previously spartan layout and unorganized list of features have also been replaced with a much more intuitive dashboard. Features are quite a bit easier to track down now, including the location-based options the company recently enabled. The experience feels slightly broken in some areas, however. For example, some headings have sub-sections unfurl beneath them, whereas others link to a different page entirely. Still, this new dashboard is a welcome refresh that makes Drop.io's wide variety of sharing and permissions options much easier to wrap one's head around.

Besides a new API that we explored when coding a GNOME file uploader, Drop.io has gained a number of other useful features in the last few weeks. One is a Firefox 3 add-on that allows users to drag-and-drop files from the desktop to create new drops or expand existing drops. While drops have long provided embed codes that allow visitors at other websites to upload files, they can now be embedded in Facebook profiles, as well. A new "Hidden" upload option also allows drop owners to share an obfuscated URL that allows files to be uploaded without exposing the true URL of a drop; great for opening up a drop for clients while keeping everything else private.

While this was technically just a redesign of Drop.io's front and back ends, it feels like a major feature update. Now that options are organized and exposed in a much more intuitive, contextually relevant manner, Drop.io's potential to be nearly anything—a low-maintenance blog, a collaborative work hub, or a communication proxy for journalists and employees alike—is much more apparent.

Drop.io's business model still focuses on charging users for extra storage space (free accounts get 100MB) and stability (free drops may expire anywhere from one day to one year after the last time they are viewed). If you want more details about today's redesign or to view a video of it in action, head over to Drop.io's announcement blog post.