The initial response from Nirvanix is to refuse to do more than keep the files until 8 August for users to download through The Linkup interface. Yet 45% of file links never made it into The Linkup database from the Mediamax one. Nirvanix has the data, but will destroy it (to make more space on its servers to sell to other unknown interface companies) unless people campaign for THEIR DATA to be returned to them. See:
http://nirvanix...s.blogspot.com/

I don’t appreciate the commenter in #85 stealing my name.

What is so disconcerting about this website, and blogs like it, is that it claims to scoop “news” but honestly, nothing is or can be authenticated. I am the real Tom Bassett. Or are you? Is there a real Tom Bassett? Was he a fired employee?

I’ve never worked for Mediamax/Linkup/Nirvanix/Streamload. I am a victim OF those companies. They lost many of my files, photographs I took over the course of a year, things that are irreplaceable. I trusted Mediamax as a trustworthy online backup company, and they (and Nirvanix) let me down.

The information CAN be authenticated – it comes from employees of those sites and most of it was posted on OFFICIAL company sites and blogs, or was received in emails FROM those employees and can be traced back to them if need be. Stop trying to obfuscate the issue.

It’s one thing to screw up royally, as Streamload/Nirvanix/Linkup/Mediamax has done. It is quite another to BLAME THE VICTIMS – the outraged users who lost so much data. Why, I even heard a former employee say that we should quit whining because all we lost was porn and pirate recordings. Excuse me, but I lost a chunk of my life I can’t get back, because I trusted the good name of those companies and those who lauded them.

Never before have I seen employees of a company who did SO much bad attack the victims and whisteblowers the way they have! They change their name numerous times, form entirely new companies (with same employees, computers, etc), delete ALL user comments from their official company blogs, post under different names on various websites, and just generally try to muddy the waters so nothing can be figured out.

Unfortunately for them, they pissed off some very resourceful people, who have spent hours wading through the lies and deceit to find the truth, and the truth is Nirvanix is the company that lost all the Mediamax users files. Now, this has been admitted by none other than Charlie Jackson, an actual board member of the company. It has been admitted also by the head of Mediamax customer services. The lies have been uncovered, the truth is now out. STOP BLAMING THE VICTIMS and start coming clean.

Yes, this information can be authenticated. Or are we supposed to believe that anything that reveals the ugly truth about Nirvanix is just a rumor? Good try though.

Now, I do know that Charlie Jackson is an respected businessman and a gentleman. He would hardly post half truths on a thread like this.

Finally, since the intent of TechCrunch was to make this a fun story to begin with let’s finish it with some fun! Yes, I am ticked I have lost my files on MediaMax and have to upload them to another free service, but the EULA and the going out of business sign says I am out of luck.

Now, I think I found the real Charlie!!! http://www.yout...h?v=Q5im0Ssyyus

/ June 11th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
/ Here are the lost MediaMax files:
/ http://uk.youtu...h?v=h3GZ_GdR6BU

anyone have a copy?

For someone who spends so much time on this subject, you have an extremely low reading comprehension ability. Let me explain what has been posted and I believe to be accurate:

* Nirvanix has the same employees as Mediamax
No, the companies did split and have separate employees.

What I’m saying is: The same employees who screwed up at Streamload/Mediamax are now at Nirvanix.

No. Nirvanix is the original company and kept all the companys servers (the Streamload servers).

By changing the company names so often, they’ve made it confusing to follow their trail and easy for shills to play semantic games. I’ll quote Charlie Jackson on this:

Steve Iverson took over this company, while the existing company, with all the servers and data, was re-named Nirvanix.

So in other words, the computers that once belonged to Streamload/Mediamax, containing all our data, now belong to Nirvanix.

Streamload/Mediamax/Linkup spun off another company, called Nirvanix. Most of the employees of Streamload/Mediamax/Linkup moved to Nirvanix. Nirvanix kept the computers/servers of Streamload/Mediamax/Linkup. Streamload/Mediamax/Linkup used Nirvanix as a storage solution, and now blames Nirvanix (their own spin-off) for losing those millions of customer files. It’s quite simple and no amount of obfuscation will hide the truth.

Nirvanix is the party responsible for losing the terabytes of customer data from Mediamax
Correct.

I’m glad you admitted it – that’s the main point. Nirvanix is to blame for the woes felt by Mediamax/Streamload/Linkup users, and according to John Hood, Nirvanix demanded Mediamax lie about it to those same customers. I don’t care what excuse they have.

People like to complain if one of us Streamload/Nirvanix/Mediamax/Linkup VICTIMS is wrong on a little point – they like to pick nits. But the fact, which is now admitted by all parties, is that Nirvanix is the party responsible for losing our data, and Nirvanix is now run and staffed by the same people who lost the data under the Mediamax/Streamload moniker.

How on earth am I going to get my files back?

0 were transferred from Mediamax to the “linkup” thus far. And 0 are in the account right now.

There is nothing that I can download until August 8th, if that doesn’t change.

For someone who spends so much time on this subject, you have an extremely low reading comprehension ability. Let me explain what has been posted and I believe to be accurate:

* Nirvanix has the same employees as Mediamax
No, the companies did split and have separate employees. They are separate companies. Nirvanix retained virtually all of the original Streamload/Nirvanix employees, and all but two went to start Mediamax. As you point out in your blog Mediamax moved to a new office just down the street from the original Streamload office.

* Nirvanix has the same computers/servers as Mediamax
No. Nirvanix is the original company and kept all the companys servers (the Streamload servers). Mediamax was a new company and ran Mediamax and later TLU on new equipment. They do not share servers.

* Nirvanix is the party responsible for losing the terabytes of customer data from Mediamax
Correct. The Mediamax spin-out never maintained the actual storage of files, but instead paid Nirvanix to do so – they outsourced it. Thats Nirvanixs business model. Mediamax screwed up by letting Nirvanix keep our files and Nirvanix screwed up by actually losing them.

* Combined with the new info from John Hood, former head of Mediamax Customer Service, that Nirvanix demanded Mediamax LIE TO THEIR customers about their relationship, and you don’t have a very pretty portrait of Nirvanix.
Its actually not that uncommon for companies to have an agreement that prevents them from publicly disclosing a deal. In this case it became a problem because Nirvanix screwed up the customer data, and that caused major problems for Mediamax.

* Nirvanix has the same employees as Mediamax
* Nirvanix has the same computers/servers as Mediamax
* Nirvanix is the party responsible for losing the terabytes of customer data from Mediamax

Combined with the new info from John Hood, former head of Mediamax Customer Service, that Nirvanix demanded Mediamax LIE TO THEIR customers about their relationship, and you don’t have a very pretty portrait of Nirvanix.

The original entity was Streamload. The product name was changed to MediaMax and it was still the same service. Steve Iverson, the founder, was still CEO. Patrick Harr was brought in to be CEO and to help raise money, Iverson was moved to being CTO.

When a C round investor was found, Mission Ventures, this venture firm wanted nothing to do with the consumer service of MediaMax, only wanted to be in the back-end business. The C investor allowed a spin-out to be done, and the new company was allowed to take the name MediaMax and the consumer customers, but no software, no servers, no data. The front-end software was licensed to the spin-out, but for a limited time. Steve Iverson took over this company, while the existing company, with all the servers and data, was re-named Nirvanix. Virtually all the employees stayed with Nirvanix. Nirvanix is trying to compete with Amazon’s S-3 service.

Around the time this spin-out was happening, Nirvanix engineers screwed up royally and accidentally deleted half the files. Most were recovered over time, but it took months, and there was never 100% recovery (I never got some of files back).

MediaMax wrote new front-end software and recently changed its name to TheLinkup. Nirvanix wrote new back-end software, but had trouble migrating all the MediaMax files from its old software to its new software.

MediaMax/TheLinkup coudn’t make all its customers’ files available, ran out of money, and not having a viable business anymore, had to shut down (the C investors never put any money into the spin-out).

This is an abbreviated version, but more accurate than anything else that has been posted here.

**

MediaMax / The Linkup is closing

We regret to inform you that we will be closing The Linkup service on Friday, August 8 at 5:00 pm PDT.

Please login to your account and download any files that you wish to keep before Friday, August 8 at 5:00 pm PDT.

The Linkup is no longer accepting any uploads or new accounts, and no further charges will be made to your credit card. After August 8, your account will not be accessible, all your personal information will be deleted (username, billing information, history, etc), and your files will be deleted.

It was not possible to satisfactorily complete the move of files from MediaMax to The Linkup as we had expected, and as a result cannot offer a service that meets your expectations and our business requirements. This is a very disappointing outcome for us, and we know it has been a frustrating experience for many of our customers. We are very sorry that we have not been able to continue our service as we had envisioned.

Sincerely,
The Linkup Team

**

Takes one to the very cusp of homicidal.

I’m the author of Quickstreamload. A simple
VB/ATL app that helped Streamload users upload files quickly by using
the Windows context menu (right-click).

I attempted to contact Steamload developers repeatedly. I emailed them
3 or 4 times. No response. Now, I know my little app wasn’t much, but
it was used by a few people who liked it. It was even later discovered by someone in tech support. Now here’s the sad and funny part.

He said he liked my app, but I should support Streamload MediaMax. I
said, without the interface specification (which was not available at
that time – I searched the website) I couldn’t do any work. He said
back something like: “You really should support MediaMax.” I went the Better Business Bureau and kept pursuing them. Check out their status on the BBB site…..they are the worst kind of business people.

We regret to inform you that we will be closing The Linkup service on Friday, August 8 at 5:00 pm PDT.

The Linkup is no longer accepting any uploads or new accounts, and no further charges will be made to your credit card. After August 8, your account will not be accessible, all your personal information will be deleted (username, billing information, history, etc), and your files will be deleted. Please download any files that are in your account that you wish to keep before Friday, August 8 at 5:00 pm PDT.

It was not possible to satisfactorily complete the move of files from MediaMax to The Linkup as we had expected, and as a result cannot offer a service that meets your expectations and our business requirements. This is a very disappointing outcome for us, and we know it has been a frustrating experience for many of our customers.

We are very sorry that we have not been able to rebuild our service as we had envisioned. We sincerely appreciate those of you who stuck by us and held out hope for the return of a great service, and apologize that things did not work out better. And also a special thanks and apology to those developers who have been developing applications on The Linkup API that can no longer be supported.

Sincerely,
The Linkup Team

PREDICTION: They will either resurface under a new name, or all the employees will simply walk across the street and start working for their spin-off company, Nirvanix.