MediaMax is dead, long live TLU

Late to the party, but I'm probably not the only one that missed the announcement of MediaMax that V6, which is called The Link Up, will go live on april 25 at which time V5 will be discontinued and news like that deserves it's own topic.

I and others have been, and still are betatesting TLU and I will admit that, so far, it has been very stable. If it remains this way will become clear on 25 april I guess. Personally speaking, I'm a little worried and think we're a little to early. For one thing, a key element, the sharing part, isn't really working as it should at the moment, but I assume that can be fixed before the 25th. More dissapointing to me is that a couple of features that either we have even in V5 or that were talked about in the demo that was shown last year are not present (yet) in TLU. Now I know that it is not to be expected that every wish we had for the new system will be granted in the first release but that's not what I'm expecting. A few things though I had hoped to see in the first public release and frankly, if that takes another month of coding / betatesting, MM should have taken this month. After all, some people have been waiting for a fix since octobre 2006 so what's one more month and wouldn't it be better if you had your first release with a bit more bells and whistles?

There is also confusion about what kind of grandfathered rights we're going to take with us from V5 to TLU to which MM needs to make a clear and proper statement as to what kind of rights our accounts have after april 25.

Unrest also about MMs plan to convert only files that have been uploaded after july 1, 2007 and give people a tool so that they can decide which (if any) older files they also want to convert. I understand MM wants to take this opportunity to see if they can clear some dead weight from their database, but I'm a little worried on how well the auto conversion and this tool will work, because lets face it, MM and conversions haven't been exactly on good standing over the years. As Shamana in the previous thread already pointed out most people will have files and folders of mixed dates lumped together and usually in an organised structure. Will that structure be preserved or will we find one giant lump of files in our new TLU account for us take sort out from scratch again? Also what about certain structures that don't exist in TLU (for instance there is no more inbox and saved attachement folders). Files that currently reside there, often out of neccesity because of V5 bugs, what will happen to them?

I also understand people that use MediaMax as a backup / archive and just want to get all their files converted no matter if they are dormant or not. The purpose of an archive IS to provide backup in case you loose something so even when the tool that we are to get can still get every (working) file over to TLU it's still somewhat vexing that we have to be put through this. Like I said, I understand MM wanting to try and clear up their database, but I'd like to get some good answers on the questions above and sure hope MM really has this down to the numbers, because I see a huge potential for some major catastrophes here and like this is not something they can afford again.

I'm hoping John Hood / Steve Iverson will adress our concerns and will manage to amaze us with a conversion that does NOT look a traffic accident like we experienced in the past. Time will tell.
Speaking about telling. Since this is major news for all current MM account holders (freeloader or not) I'm somewhat amazed that a public notification hasn't been send to all accounts about this. Especially for people that have turned freeloader awaiting better times MMs upcoming conversion plan can have drastic and unwanted effects and some early warning for them probably is a good idea.

Constructive critism, thoughts and suggestions are welcomed.

'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.