MediaMax, a perpetually controversial San Diego based startup, says we need a social network around paper products file sharing. More on that in a minute (as well as a relevant video clip from The Office), but first a note on a new scandal brewing.
In the past few weeks, we’ve received a number of complaints about MediaMax, the troubled file storage site that lost vast amounts of its users’ files last summer. It seems that the company has once again stepped between its users and their data, though this time it was intentional.
The site (which was formerly known as Streamload) has decided to relaunch as The Linkup, a social networking site based around storage (yes, you read that right). As part of the transition, MediaMax chose to disable access to all of their free accounts. Users were given two options: either pony up $6 a month to continue having access to your files, or download them before they deleted your account.
Unfortunately, it seems that many users never got the message. The company says that it notified its users through email, but given the number of people that unexpectedly lost access to their files, it seems that these warnings weren’t enough.
From one disgruntled user:
About notification: they say they did, but it must have gone into spam. I have saved spam for more than a month, but there is no mail from them. Also, all the previous mails like email notification and changes passwords always arrive in my inbox, why should their email go in spam? They are lying openly.
If you were on a free account, and you haven’t downloaded your files yet, you’re screwed. They’re gone.
Oh yeah, if you did decide to go with the Pro account, you’re also out of luck for the time being. The company is apparently having difficultly getting files transferred between MediaMax and The Linkup, and the files probably won’t be available until late June (The Linkup launched on May 10 - that’s nearly two months of downtime).
Those fearless users who aren’t too concerned with having access to their files should try out The Linkup, “The social network for file sharing.” Why do we need a social network around cloud storage and file sharing? The Office gives us the answer: “its all about creating a one stop consumer experience.”
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Here are the lost MediaMax files:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=h3GZ_GdR6BU
But these users didn’t pay for the service. I pay $25 a year to flickr. I expect my pictures to be safe. I would never expect them to be safe on zooomr for example.
I think there is a reasonable expectation of loss with a free service.
@Chris
Dang, better back up my Gmail.
As a side note, I have to say embedded video clips are not hulu’s strong suit. Not yet, at least.
it’s a shell game. stay away from streamload/mediamax/linkup/nirvanix or whatever they call themselves tomorrow. $10 million into this company = bubble 2.0.
http://network-tools.com/defau.....linkup.com
Ping 206.251.254.17
[node1.nirvanix.com]
As another side note, you can’t see the clip outside of the US. Can anyone name the episode for me so I can be part of the group?
Thank you! I thought I was the only one wondering what the hell social networking had to do with online file storage.
Two services I have found to be extremely stable and reliable:
http://www.dropboks.com
http://www.box.net
Ditto on hulu embeds. I wish they would allow the high quality ones to be embedded.
Thanks for the links and thanks for ditching Akismet so I can comment here yet again. I never touched on the missing files but the files I did try to save, many of them were not found and given up as lost.
I did get the email but it was only a few days before the change over. I noted that they had announced the change over a mont earlier on their offsite blog but up to the day of the changeover, there was no mention what so everm on their actual site. I had something like 7 days to grab as much data as possible and, since it was near the end of the month, not much bandwidth allocated to me remaining.
What’s rather ironic though is that while most of those files were donated to me or (I’ll be honest here) “found” for me for my assistance towards users on wordpress.com while I was support forum moderator over there, I posted proof of how they’re missing splogs reports and blocked my account and blackballed me with Akismet. I would think that would be a bigger story considering how they keep presenting themselves as pro “free speech” and “anti spam” they are.
Please excuse any typos. Locked down terminal that I have to view through a glass. Barely see the screen.
Regards,
-drmike
@Jay: http://www.tv.com/the-office/n.....mmary.html
Hulu does not stream outside the US currently, given Techcrunch’s global readership, please consider using an embed which is viewable everywhere.
If that is an attempt at mixing file sharing with social networking it is a bad one. So far it is only a file sharing site and there are literally hundreds of those. I don’t see anything defensible about their business model…doesn’t bode well for growth in such a crowded market segment.
I know this will be deleted. But what about omnidrive which has been under the lens for a long time now. Nic is posting on this site regularly. You are writing about your competeitors. Wht not the truth on your invested companies ? You keep writing about your other companies like seesmic with a disclosure. Why not about omnidrive ? If you cant write the truth on your own companies dont write about the competeition.
Thanks for posting this. I HAD files hosted with this company and the first I heard about this change was your article. I just sent an email to their legal team asking that all records of communications be preserved as I plan to sue their ass. This is ridiculous! As someone who works in the SaaS space this gives everyone a black eye.
JD, Nirvanix has nothing to do with this, leave them out of this one.
@Tyler thanks. [rant]Although I understand antiquated media distribution rights models and the industry’s reluctance to adapt, I hope that regional locking has a speedy (yet painful) death.[/rant]
I’m very curious about the relationship between MediaMax (The Linkup?) and Nirvanix.
Nick, JD, or anyone else - can you clarify what’s going on there? TechCrunch has linked the two more than once, and it sounded like they shared some execs at the very least?
Please use videos that can be seen from outside the US.
Hulu does not work in Australia…
Yeah thanks for the post, but videos that are region locked are pretty annoying. How about make a point that the clips are useless on a region free internet if they are locked to the US (full episodes I can understand locking with regional variations in distribution even if I don’t like it, but clips are supposed to be used like this to demonstrate something or amuse someone)
Or maybe TC is only for US readers?
@Chris How could you say that? Many services on the Internet are free; should we have low expectations of these sites?
Usually, these sites are ad supported, so if the service was not dependable it would reflect badly on the ad, thus causing a decline in ad sales.
If users of Zoomr have the same low expection of service as you, the sites days are numbered.
This Hulu thing is as interesting as the MediaMax article.
Note to Hulu! You look provincial at best and just plain backward at worst. This is the 21st entury. If your service only works within one country, it is useless and whoever gave you VC should have given it to me. I have a bridge in Brooklyn for them.
It was an honest mistak…er, business model.
YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF THIS USER SPECIFIC POST
I signed up when the service was still running as Streamload and it was great. In fact it was so great that I became a paid member as I believed that it was worth paying for.
Then they renamed it to MediaMax and migration across to the new name/system took months. Even then, for months after, I could not see previews of some of my files. To their credit they opened a blog so that users could help them in identifying bugs/errors. I couldn’t access my files and after getting no response from their helpdesk I wrote on the blog site only to find my post a few hours later. So I wrote it again, adding that my previous post had been removed.
ABout 6 months ago, I decided their poor and unreliable service was not worth my money so returned to being a free user account. I was one of the forunate users who DID receive the notification telling users to sign up or lose everything but they gave something like 2 weeks notice??? I have since signed up with SugarSync and it is such a breath of fresh air.
MediaMax is dead…Long live mediamax….
MediaMax is in trouble!!!
Check my view on ” http://www.geocities.com/stevenli60/tallchat.htm
Isn’t it about time Techcrunch investigate Mediamax/Linkup’s competitor, that seem just as incompetent viz. Omnidrive. Mr Arrington, you should, I believe, be particularly well informed on this company.
#22 - I was a Streamload user too and it was a great service - they REALLY screwed it up with Mediamax. I doubt they will be able to rebuild what they had with The Linkup, and I know I’m not going to try it.
@24 — I don’t think TC censored omnidrive.com posts, this is a proof. More likely your post was eaten by the “spam killer” technically
That said, doesn’t mean TC won’t ban you from posting.
@24 — might be they did, via moderation..
yes, i was a “free” victim - i felt slighted — but didn’t care… it reminded me that i wanted a better service.. and - on techcruch review - went with Carbonite and I love it.
I highly recommend its ease of use, unltd space, and basic pricing… i signed up as an affiliate — but i haven’t yet used it
i’m sure other services are just as good– no major endorsement…
point being, MediaMax really screwed up - i’m more saddened than disappointed.
~ Vikram Rajan
PersonalBrandMarketing.com
why is hulu limited to the united states? don’t they know the internet is a global thing?
idjits
@ #3 … yes, backing up gmail may be a good idea … it is getting slow and a bit buggy … plus, it is part of a complex system, one good sunspot ,,
Please stop embedding Hulu clips, not every one who reads TechCrunch is in the United States and can see them.
@gregory
They’re probably like that old man that sat next to me at Tim Horton’s the other day. He overheard us talking about the internet and so he goes….
“Internet? I don’t need no damn Internet - next year they’ll have something better anyways…”
In my mind: ” Global…. we don’t need no global….”
Absolutely hate hulu as us Canadians cant view tv shows or anything on it….
You all whining about Hulu being US-only….do you people think that ‘the office’ really helps explain the article any better?
It’s a 20 min “clip” and would be taken down if embedded via any other service. Get over it.
I’m the owner of FreeDrive.com (http://www.freedrive.com) and yes that’s me in the video smashing the storage server.
The reason I’m writing is that we use Nirvanix for all our storage. We have not had a single second of downtime nor have we ever lost a single file on the Nirvanix platform and we have hundreds of thousands of happy accounts. Their service has been flawless.
As far as I know, Nirvanix is a complete and distinct entity from Mediamax. In any case, I can vouch for the stability and quality of the Nirvanix service and I highly recommend them.
Also if you’d like to see how a file-sharing service works as a social network, see how we’ve done a deep integration with facebook. http://apps.facebook.com/freedrive
To those of you bitching about Hulu. Wake up! Hulu’s advertisers are US based, they are formed by US broadcasters. It is in every right for them to restrict distribution to the US.
Sure sure.. the web is “global”… everything should be “free”… free until this bubble blows up, advertising dollars dry up and Google sheds its sheep clothing and starts charging for everything… then we’ll see that just like the last dot bomb that there is no free lunch and businesses exist to make money and not to eradicate evil or whatever the mantra du jour is.
@35: Sure Nirvanix may be a separate entity
But businesses are not judged just by its own history, businesses are judged by their founders’ reputations. I believe the founders of Nirvanix came from MediaMax. So it would be reasonable to expect the sort of decisions they make to be similar to the decisions they made in their previous companies.
And I’m sure many burnt MediaMax customers sure feel they made lousy decisions.
David Stocker If your service only works within one country, it is useless and whoever gave you VC should have given it to me.
Yep, I see the VCs pounding a path to your door right now. Why showing TV shows in the US when you only have US advertisers is insane!
I’m surprised people in here haven’t complained you can’t watch the videos over a 56k dialup yet.
Here are the lost MediaMax files:
Ugg! If you are going to post a video, at least be kind enough to do it from a site that doesn’t block non-US users!!
Please bear in mind that whenever you embed a Hulu video you lock out all non US visitors. This way you only piss non-US visitors off.
In my opinion Hulu is ONLY for direct consumation, not for republishing on blogs or sites with an international readership.
I am sticking to box.net and acrobat.com for now. Acrobat.com looks to be a better choice for me now with Adobe backup.
Unfortunatly i cant acces the video, teccrucnch i believe you need to consider the fact that you have a large non US reader population
My site http://www.gl-science.com applies to a global market
I’m sure glad this has made the news. I have a paid MediaMax Premium Account, and all my zip files containing valuable business documents have gone missing. No response from them either on what they are doing about that. Its a disaster.
@BlogReader - I think you missed my point - and the meaning of the snarky comment about the Brooklyn bridge - entirely. In the 21st century, the internet allows you to do business across borders. I am an American who is sitting in India and has a business presence in Germany.
It takes extra effort to block people based on their TLD. Sure they may have advertisers only in the US. In which case, they have neatly boxed themselves in an. If I can’t access a site when I am outside the US, I see a company mired in the past.
Not everyone who reads TechCrunch lives in the US.
Well that really sucks. I had about 500 MBs of data on their servers. I used to receive their emails, but I haven’t had one in months.
This company is a joke. What happened? Did they saw what wua.la had come up with and said “Fuck, why are we paying for maintenance of all that equipment, and why would we pay for someone else to maintain the equipment (Amazon S3), when we can piggyback on the public. We can use their PCs and broadband. If the machines crap out then they will go out and buy new ones and pay for the data recovery, also. Fuck, and you know what, this is even better, not only we are going to use their equipment and money, but we will also make them give US their money for something they don’t really need.
This reminds me of the anti-cable tv ad “… lets improve out service by raising the prices. These people are workaholics, they don’t know any better, they don’t watch TV, because they are always working …. They need to dispose somehow of that extra money they are making…”