This is one of those great mornings for a startup when everything just seems to be going your way. We’re in San Francisco to announce our exciting new Pando Publisher service (more on that soon) at Supernova 2007. We woke up today to an awesome, totally unsolicited review by David Pogue, king of tech over at the New York Times. Startups kill to have him say anything about them and we even tried about a year ago. Seems the best reviews come when a product actually solves a real world problem, in real-time, for a reporter.

David’s problem — David was writing a review of new cameras and took 2 Gigabytes of photos. He then boards a flight to CA but forgets to load the photos onto his laptop. After he and his wife try several methods of sending the 2GBs of photos, including FTP and IM, David remembers Pando …

He writes:

Finally, in desperation, I remembered a pitch that some PR person had made a year ago. It was for Pando (pando.com), a free, cross-platform, super-simple program designed expressly for idiotproof file transfers, even big ones. I remember having tried it once successfully.

So as midnight approached, Jennifer and I both downloaded Pando. There’s no signup, no registration, no fee. You open this program, drag your file—or even ordinary, uncompressed folders—into Pando’s open window, and click Send. It asks you for the e-mail address of the recipient, and off you go.

Now Jennifer hit Send, the file began uploading, and the two of us, on opposite coasts, went to bed.

I woke up early and found the Pando message in my e-mail box. There was a tiny, 2-kilobyte attachment that, when opened, fired up the Pando program and began downloading the package. Shortly thereafter, the deed was done; I had my two gigs of photos in California.

I remembered why I hadn’t loved Pando before; it seemed like a hassle that both parties have to have the free software. With FTP, at least I can send you a link (by e-mail) that begins downloading my file immediately; I’d rather not ask you to go download a special program just to receive my file.

But I have to admit that once you’re past that hump, Pando is dog-simple to use: just drag the file or folder, click Send, and supply the recipient’s e-mail address. Its servers are fast, the whole thing is anonymous and secure—and above all, it works.

Glad we could help David!

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