Saturday, March 15, 2008

'MediaMax' V6 beta underway

After several delays it's for real. Beta testing v6 is underway since the early hours march 15 after receiving a mail from Steve Iverson. I can't tell very much about it as I'm asked to keep everything under wraps for now as not to clutter the new beta service with any other persons then the beta testers.

I can tell you though that the name MediaMax will be a thing of the past as there is a new name and a new website that goes along with it which won't suprise anybody with a hint of marketing sense. Atm, the beta testsite is really only a bare product as beta testers are asked to evaluate download, folder management functionality and especially upload performance. In the next couple of weeks other functionality as sharing and searching will be added for us take apart as well.

I've run into a couple of snags at the moment which have to do with the setup of my test account, but I can report that the upload speed (webupload) is back at the level before their last major outage. Granted, there aren't to many people on the new system, but the fact that the speed is back is a good first sign. I'm also told I'll be getting my hands on a windows client uploader soon to try out so webupload won't be the only option available.

46 comments:

shamanana said...

Thanks for the update WillT. Really appreciate it. But, there is something that bothers me a bit. You mentioned a windows client uploader... Have they mentioned other platforms at all? Like is there anything in the works along the way that would help "the rest of us" upload our files faster? Or perhaps just the ability to use our own ftp uploaders? Maybe a dedicated ftp server for that purpose? It would be nice. Anything but webupload really. ;)

Anonymous said...

The headline...
'Mediamax V6 beta underway.'
Thats a laugh. EVERYTHING about mediamax is BETA!

They should have to state on their homepage that the whole stinking mess is one giant experiment that fails more than it succeeds. (And I can't believe how long it still takes to simply bring up that home page).

Anonymous said...

Will they be BETA testing the customer service as well?

Will they be BETA testing the how to loose more files?

Will they be BETA testing how to charge for a service that never works....oh hang on that one isn't in BETA anymore is it, they have this part well fixed!

The scum involved in this compnay should be kicked off the internet and never allowed to trade again.

New website, and BETA software,who are you trying to kid?

Anonymous said...

shamanana- FTP is coming in a later version of v6. In the past some users preferred FTP because it was resumable. Our new windows client is also resumable so we're wondering if there will still be a large demand for FTP. Are there other reasons you prefer FTP? Please share your thoughts on this as it will help us prioritize the the release date of FTP.

Anonymous said...

I would also like the option of FTP, The more options for uploading the better really. I just find it much easier to use after the initial setup. Or at least I used to before I started having to use the Mediamax FTP gateway that is constantly locking up or timing out. I would love it if the gateway program could be eliminated all together.

WebUpload will always need to be there I suppose, I've always had mixed results with it. You never quite know if it's Mediamax's fault, or simply your browser erroring, but usually it will only work for me about 1/2 the time.

What I would really like Is SIMPLE programs. Like the good old Streamload uploader and downloader.

I have no problem with your fancy All in one Shebang programs(XL), but I find when I just need to upload, I don't want to deal with all the bloat of an all in one app, Just a nice clean drag and drop interface with a few menu buttons suits me just fine.

And John H, My hat's off to you....I should severely dislike you for losing all my files and taking my money at the same time,
But I'm glad you still post here even in the face of extreme criticism and hostility.

Lugus DC said...

John Hood, i want to be a beta tester too, what i have to do?

Thanks for the support!!!

Anonymous said...

ff8raider-
You've pretty much summed up what v6 is all about. It's a lot simpler than v5. MMXL will be discontinued. So will the FTP gateway. FTP will make a comeback sometime after the launch of v6.
lugus- post your username and i'll see if I can hook up.

Thanks to you both for the compliments/appreciation!

Anonymous said...

Hey, If you really want people to share their thoughts, all I can suggest is that you make a post on your proprietary MM blog and open it back up to public comments!

Sorry, I couldn't resist a try at least.
=)

Lugus DC said...

Hello John Hood,

My username is lg200 (LG200)

Thanks!!!

Lugus DC said...

John Hood, i have upgraded my account
to Elite plan, and nothing happened to my account (still premium), and i think i upgraded twice by mistake. Can you fix the second upgrade to only charge me the first upgrade to Elite pan abd change the premium plan to Elite plan?

Anonymous said...

John,

I have sent some feedback concerning the new site as a beta tester per email and I still wait for some feedback, you know we discussed before communication.

I am convinced that we can mutually benefit form some form of communicating about the site, this blog might be an example but please consider open up some kind of forum
as a functionality of the site where we can leave ideas and discussions. You can also consider some way of moderating if that's what you want. For you it has the big advantage you can easily inform all users.

BTW I agree with the need for FTP, those programs are quite stable. Java as a way of batchuploading might always cause some crash eventually

shamanana said...

john hood

Thanks for replying and actually showing interest in MM customers opinions. These days it seems to be a rarity. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
But, back to FTP business. The reason I prefer FTP:

1. Stability
2. There is no size limit (queue them up and forget about it)
3. Scheduling (there're times when I cannot be there to start certain uploads but FTP takes care of that)
4. FTP is platform "blind" (you mentioned the fact that your "windows client" will be resumable... well, I am very happy for them but... ;)
5. Drag & Drop (simplicity, like ff8raider pointed it out nicely)
6. I am also aware that with ftp you can also download files and what is even more important - you can transfer files directly from one ftp server to another (in this case directly to Mediamax/Streamload)
7. If I forgot to mention something please feel free to add...

As for the need to have another forum to discuss issues and suggestions...well, this place is more than adequate. Everything else would sooner or later turn into a bashing trashing war zone. Not without reason I must say.

FTP (our own ftp clients of course!) - the Sooner the Better.

Anonymous said...

I meant a forum as part of their site such that it might be used easiliy by all parties. It is not so difficult to react here, but there are little people still visiting this blog and wanting to comment. The main problem
is that mm is (still) not communicating

Covereds Place said...

communicating?

do they know that word?

Anonymous said...

lugus you should be good to go as far as your plan is concerned. i'll be in contact with you tomorrow about beta testing.

shamanana- thanks for your feedback. I have shared it with the entire MediaMax team.

Anonymous said...

jd- We have a blog that is set up for v6 that will come out when it is GA'd and yes comments will be on. (But I reserve the right to delete ones that are nasty and/or unconstructive.) We might also do one just for the beta testers. I'll let you know about that one shortly.

Lugus DC said...

Thanks John Hood, now my plan changed
at mediamax, but now i want to change the payment to paypal, and everytime i try to change it, it charges me the price of the elite plan, i already paid and dont want to pay again, how can i change without paying again?

Thanks for the support!!!

Unknown said...

John Hood,

I'm also interested in beta testing if there are still any slots available. I work professionally in software QA so I think I could be a great asset in beta testing. User: Ephesus79

I have been a customer since the SL days and I have quietly observed the SL to MM transition and all the drama associated with it. I have a lot of effort invested in my files so I've given MM the benefit of the doubt. I was most impressed when MM admitted to its failures and communicated what was going on...at least to the hard core users. Working in IT, I understand how these kinds of breakdowns happen, but the important thing now is that you learned from your mistakes and are moving forward. I think your involvement here is a good sign and I'm hopeful with the v6 product.

Covereds Place said...

ofc i always give them the benefit of the doubt, even if i am pretty anxious about their plans, but oke.

i still think they should communicate in a better way.

look at their own blog, the last entry is of 12th of march, when you know there are so many probs, even if it's v5 you should give feedback about what is going on and why. Clients do not have to guess about that and are certainly not waiting for the only message that is solved!!!!

When i have probs I already gave up on sending an email to support, am sorry but they suck.

Am glad to see the testing of v6, due to connection probs i could not do a lot yet, except uploading a few files, but since today it seems to be solved, so will do a bit more of trying things out.

i really hope and keep hoping v6 will be the answer and solution to v5.

and pls let the forum/blog for testers be there soon, am sure enough people have questions.

Danny said...

Hi John Hood, can I be a beta tester too? (My account is "dannym")

Anonymous said...

lugus-
The only way that can be done is to wait until the day before the next renewal.. then either pay via PP that day and email me to reset the renewal date to match and avoid the Cc charge.. or we can refund the cc charge when it processes. That will fix it going forward. You can't set up a PP sub without paying the first payment when its created.

Anonymous said...

As far as communication on our blog is concerned, we only talk about v5 there. And as I have said here repeatedly, we won't be making ANY improvements to v5. It is what it is. All of our development efforts are geared towards building a quality v6 product. The exception, as you can tell from reading the blog, is when there is a system-wide critical issue such as uploads not processing. Thankfully, that hasn't happened lately. As a result there have been no blog updates and there won't be until we've all beta tested v6, and agree that it's ready to launch. "We" being the those of you who are our testers and the MM staff. At that time we'll start preparing regular customers for the transition and there'll be so many blog posts that people will wish that I would shut up. :)

shamanana said...

john hood,

Thank you again for keeping us updated...
I realize that the release of the V6 is still in the not-so-near future which is fine as long as the final product is not a disappointment that V5 proved to be after all that promotion.
Since that (V6) release is not to be just an "update" of the present product do you expect the kind of transition period we had in the past (V4-V5)? With all the data indexing and what-not that kept us from using it for months?
That notion seems to be lurking in between the lines... "At that time we'll start preparing regular customers for the transition..."?

Well, I don't want to sound negative, but I'd rather take a vacation during that period ;) Or even after that...

Anonymous said...

shamanana- I just meant that we'll inform them that v5 is about to be shut down. There won't be a long transition. We learned a lot from last time's nightmare. In fact, we've already started migrating accounts. Odds are that we've already migrated yours since we started with the big ones first. So postpone that vacation! All is well!

shamanana said...

john hood,

LOL :D
Some good news at last! Good to hear that the transition is in full swing and we haven't even noticed it (or so we believe). I must say I am impressed. And that hasn't happened in a looooong time.
Thank you!

Lugus DC said...

John Hood, how can i give you the feedback about the beta test of mediamax V6?

Thanks for the support!!!

Anonymous said...

lugus

email me and i'll give you the info for the v6 beta testers blog.

Thanks,

-jh

Lugus DC said...

I have sended you an email!!!

Thanks!!!

Anonymous said...

Can anyone tell me how I completely remove my mediamax account?

Anonymous said...

anonymous- leave your username here and i'll take care of that for you.

Anonymous said...

Mediamax account holders need to realise that the thieves at Mediamax WILL try to dip into your credit card account if you have ever given them your credit card details. Do not trust them even if you have told them you do not wish to renew. The only way to keep their thieving hands out of your pocket is to cancel your card! This company is desperate for cash flow and they have no ethics!!! They WILL ROB YOU if you give them the opportunity.

Anonymous said...

Come on now, they must have at least 1 ethic somewhere =)

Seriously though, any news on the beta testing progress? What kind of timeframe are we looking at here? I don't know how many more months I can hold out, I'm floating on credit here.

Anonymous said...

I read a suggestion of John Hood himself which indicated beginning of may. Whether that is feasible I don't know. I am a beta tester as well and so far only limited functionality is available for testing

dadlfxt said...

Fraud! Do not subscribe to MediaMax at all. Their service works but their business practices are terrible. Once they get your credit card they won't let go. They renew automatically. They won't respond to email requesting cancellation of service. They won't respond to email requesting refund. They won't respond at all. They won't take phone calls from anyone. They are creeps!!!

Anonymous said...

I want to invite the beta testers involved to comment on what their experience is so far either here or on the blog for the new site.
I have my own testresults and I would like to check my feelings and thought againt what u experience

Anonymous said...

Since MediaMax is only transferring files uploaded in the past few months, this leaves me with several thousand files not transferred. John Hood, please don't tell me these must be transferred one at a time

Anonymous said...

I already have this really really bad feeling. This comment "All files that you uploaded to MediaMax after July 1, 2007 will be automatically moved to The Linkup . If you'd like to move additional files, we will be providing a tool for you to select those files (URL coming soon)" tells me the exact problem the move from Streamload to MediaMax had. Those MediaMax guys hugely understimate the number of users who'd been paid subscribers since way before MediaMax and way before7/1/07. I bet the majority of files on MediaMax been uploaded before July 2007 and before July 2006 (when it was streamload), so what would happen is either a huge traffic jam with that "tool" or huge loss of files or some new "unexpected" bug.
What do you say to that John Hood? Are you guys aware of this fact? Did you plan for this happening? That majority of files (hundreds of thousands) are older than july 1, 2007 and older than MediaMax itself?

JD said...

Don't forget that maybe 80% or so of those files were lost !
I asked it earlier but there is almost no response here or on specific blog. Is there anyone out there testing the stuff and has an opinion about it?

Anonymous said...

Yeah this transition tool and July 1 date makes me feel incredibly uneasy.

dadlfxt said...

MediaMax business practices are foul. I don't want the service and they keep charging my credit card and won't refund my money. And they don't reply to email. And they don't take phone calls. DON'T GIVE THESE PEOPLE YOUR CREDIT CARD!

Anonymous said...

John Hood,
Thanks for the update so far. I'm one of those early users from 2003 and I have files which I have been uploading since then. Those files are irreplaceable and although in all probabilty 80% of it is lost in the flub of moving from SL to MM, I still have lots of files that I've been uploading before July 2007.
Does your "option" to move older files going to be a file by file move or will you just say that "oops your file is unavailable" or will you allow for recovery of said files?

Anonymous said...

ff8raider- you've probably seen our blog post already, but for the record we'll be launching The Linkup/v6 and shutting down v5 on April 25.

dadlfxt- just leave your username here and i'll take care of it.

danclarke- paying customers can pick which pre-7/07 files they want moved over. free accounts will not be moved over. free acct holders will need to upgrade to

Anonymous- thanks for your letter to our Customer Support. Since it's basically the same as what you've written here I'll just respond here for everyone's benefit. I can understand your concerns about this process but please be aware that our loss of files last year had nothing to do with under estimating the number of files we had prior to 7/07. We didn't even have that date as a parameter. That inicident was caused by human error as we've mentioned many times before.

Yes, we are aware that most files were uploaded before 7/07, but we also know that most of those files (it's billions as opposed to hundreds of thousands) are rarely, if ever downloaded. We don't want to waste resources moving dormant data. All the tool does is make it easier to select the files that you'd like to keep.

jd- i'd ask people to withhold until they see which files are in their v6 account. We'll only be transferring valid, uncorrupted, available files. Only then when people truly know what they have.

arwennadives- i think i answered your question above. Let me know if that's not the case.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Hood,

I'm astonished by your farcical approach to the V6/Linkup changeover. This huge development is 10 days away and I've received no notification whatsoever about the change and that most of my files on your service are to be deleted. I don't access these files very often, but that is the whole nature of a backup service. They are a BACKUP. If my system has a serious problem, which I hope it never does, I know the files are there. This is a massive failure of understanding of the business that you are supposed to be running. And an even greater failure to notify your customers of another major transformation. If I hadn't checked the blog to find out about the latest outage, I might not have had any notice at all and would have lost the files.

I'm curious. What are you feeling now? Do you KNOW that it's all going to be an unmitigated disaster? All the other upgrades were! The system collapse started by the Streamload-to-Mediamax upgrade seems to have gone on for three years. Mediamax has simply never worked! It's interface is sluggish and ugly, it's software has never made it out of beta and doesn't work and 8 times out of 10 I've had major problems on the occasions when I tried to use your service in the past year. I now use Diino for my day to day upload and hosting, for one simple reason - it's reliable. I'm frankly surprised you guys are still in business. I suspect, as in my case, that people only stay because of the hassle of moving all those old backed-up files. Your decision to save resources by deleting them could be a disastrous miscalculation that will give us all an excuse to dump you. I hope so. Your business is a mess. Your customer service is a joke. You deserve to crash and burn,

AndaD.

shamanana said...

John Hood,

Thanks for the update. So the big day is getting closer and suddenly everyone is scared about the post-move state of their accounts. Well, I guess it's only understandable.

I totally understand the need to move only the most "recent" files first and yet I am grateful for the optional "move-tool" you are planing to provide. Trust me, it will come in handy. And regarding this tool I have a tiny question: the folders and files in my account are most certainly of mixed dates (pre and post July 2007). I am assuming that we will be given a chance to move whole folders containing such files and not just the individual files as that would be indeed a HUGE hassle.

Also, since there will be two separate moves, one automatic and one manual will the folder/file structure stay the same prior to the move?

Another thing is the inbox contents. Due to certain bugs (move-bug namely) I have still most of my files in there. Will they all be automatically moved or do we have to do the same thing there manually as well?
Will there be an inbox folder at all in the new version? I was always against that feature I must say. Sorry.

Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

AndaD- all 4.1 million free and paid users will receive an email shortly. many already received them yesterday, in fact.
We're very confident that it will work thanks to feedback from our users, our new kick ass Engineering team and advances in technology that we announced in our own blog post earlier today.

shamanana-

I think you've hit it on the head. There's anxiety out there and we totally understand.
Check out the tool: http://www.thelinkup.com/mover
You'll see that it's a pretty easy process and that all files stay in place regardless of date moved. There is no need to move each file individually. The tool still needs a little tweaking so we'd appreciate your feedback. Everything will be moved regardless of its current location in your v5 account.
Nope, no inbox!

Anonymous said...

One thing I want to add here. We can back and forth ad infinitum. But this is no longer theory. The product is out. Check it out at www.thelinkup.com.
Of course there are going to be some bugs while it's still in beta. Name one tech product that din't have them at beta launch but we're committed to making corrections swiflty and don't expect there to be many issues.
But the proof is in the pudding as they say. So go bang on it and get back to me with your thoughts. Please note that you'll need to create a new username and use a different password until your accout is migrated.