Since this offhand comment seems to hit a nerve: My thinking was that there has been a slate of pro-Dropbox stories (I am a happily paying user of their service) which looked like it was carefully choreographed by a PR firm, no doubt sparked by their fundraising.
That being said, saying that they paid him was a bit over the top and I hereby retract that theory.
Don't be so nieve as to think all this good press just happens, well all still live by C.R.E.A.M. And it's not a bad thing, I love DB, but you can bet they did, indeed, pay good money for this. Did they pay the reporter? no. Did they pay for all this press? yes.
Have a look at the 'controversy' section here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pogue It's a good idea to question David's objectivity when he 'loves' a product.
In 2005, Pogue was the subject of a conflict-of-interest controversy. In a New York Times review of a hard drive recovery service, Pogue noted that the service, which can cost from $500 to $2,700, was provided at no charge for the purposes of the review;[9] but when describing the service for National Public Radio's Morning Edition program on September 12, 2005,[10] he failed to mention this. NPR's Vice President of News Bill Marimow later stated that NPR should have either not aired the review or paid for the services itself.[10] Ultimately, the Times paid for the service.[9]
Also called into question was Pogue's impartiality on reviews of products for which he had authored a Missing Manual book. This controversy necessitated a response from Clark Hoyt, the Times' Public Editor on Pogue's role as a freelance journalist with external obligations.[11] In an op-ed piece, Hoyt wrote "His multiple interests and loyalties raise interesting ethical issues in this new age when individual journalists can become brands of their own, stars who seem to transcend the old rules that sharply limited outside activity and demanded an overriding obligation to The Times and its readers."[11] Of three ethicists consulted, each agreed Pogue's position created a "clear conflict of interest" and placed the paper on "tricky ethical terrain." In response, Pogue pledged to be more open with his conflicts of interest, and while he initially claimed that because he is not a journalist he is not bound by journalistic ethics,[12] he soon recanted and agreed to offer a full "fanboy disclosure" on his website.
In June 2011 Pogue gave a presentation at the Media Relations Summit[13] in which he credits P.R. personnel (of companies whose product he is reviewing) of providing most of his material for columns. The Times' reader representative started an inquiry, which led to Pogue being banned from any such appearances in the future.[14]
Sure you're not slipping down a slope there? In the first case he failed to mention he was given something to review for free by the company. The second makes the case that he wrote positively about things he had written manuals for.
I am still failing to grasp your logic. How does this serve as evidence?
The logic, such as it is, goes something like: Pogue once did a bad thing, therefore he is a bad person, therefore he is presumed guilty of all future bad things.
I think reviewers should disclose when they get a free product, much like I think people should separate their recycling. But if I catch my neighbor throwing cans out in the regular trash, I don't also accuse him of dumping toxic waste into nearby bodies of fresh water.
Reading through the wikipedia article, it's apparent that one of the controversies was he neglected to mention that he received a free-trial of a service during an interview. This wouldn't apply to dropbox, unless you have some reason to believe he exceeded his free allotment of 5 gigabytes on his project, and was receiving a free upgrade courtesy of the dropbox team. Do you have any evidence to suggest this?
