Another Quiet Day

Why I Wouldn't Use Box.net

It really is quite simple and heartless of me.

I noticed today on the box.net weblog (a couple of days late, I know) that they've released a new service they call box.net/lite.

Now, at this point I should probably explain who box.net are. They are an online storage company where you can upload and store, well ... files. With all sorts of other features, of course.

Simple in concept. A decent commodity to sell when properly implemented and it looks like the box.net guys have all the technical and engineering aspects of the venture easily covered.

However... (You knew that was coming, right?)

I clicked on through to their Developer site thinking, as you do, "I wonder what they offer as a part of the API, it would be cool if you could integrate box.net/lite wholesale into your own service/web site."

Nothing.

Worse than nothing. The "API documentation" link asks for a password and the rest all has a small "Coming Soon" notice.

Which is just annoying.

The thing is, this reminded me that I'd actually tried this a few months back. Noticed box.net. Went to check out their API. Got the same password wall and the same "Coming Soon" notice.

Disheartening to say the least.

I don't know if I want to ask for a developer account until I know what your API can do and whether it'd suit my purposes.

I wouldn't even bother to register for a general box.net account until I know what the thing can do.

I can't even begin to imagine what sort of 'secrets' they're trying to protect behind this password wall, but then again, I don't care.

The people behind box.net don't seem to realise that they need to court developers and users.

We don't need to court them.

Update: I may have been too hasty. I just received an e-mail from Aaron Levie noting that they are working on a proper API and developer community and will talk about these issues on the box.net weblog sometime over the next few days. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Baldur Bjarnason – 28/8/06