Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 3:36 am
The Linkup (Formerly MediaMax) Closes Down For Good
MediaMax, the online storage company that just recently relaunched as The LinkUp (and which I recently bashed for screwing free users during the transition) is finally throwing in towel and closing up for good.
While I’ve STILL not gotten over losing my data, I’m in no way rejoicing over their demise. Being an entrepreneur myself (at least I like to make-believe so), I’m all too familiar with the ups and downs that go into running a business.
And I always have so much respect for the people who decide to take this route, even if, like me, they fail so many times on the way. My heart to the founders, and wish them good luck in the next venture.
Here’s a copy of the closure mail they passed along to all users on the 10th of July:
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
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Mediamax never actually stored the files. Mediamax took over the customer services part of Streamload. The servers and data storage were spun off at that time as a new company called Nirvanix was set up. According to a report, it was Nirvanix that accidently deleted millions of files in 2007, which damaged Mediamax’s image fatally. Mediamax rebranded as The Linkup, but never recovered and is now filing for bankruptcy. The files are still on the Nirvanix servers (those that were not deleted, though some of those may still be recoverable). Mediamax said: “I think the only time we intentionally lied was when we denied being a customer of Nirvanix. That was a Nirvanix demand…. Your files are at Nirvanix. It’s now up to them to decide if they want to give you access to MediaMax.”
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://nirvanixusers.blogspot.com/
@Luzo Orbit:
Thanks for the information. This is really interesting.
This is “The other John Hood”
I am not related in any way to the John Hood who worked at Mediamax/TheLinkUp. I write reviews of free and open software and webware for my site Best of Free Software - http://www.jhoodsoft.org.
My only relationship to Mediamax/TheLinkUp is that I am also a disgruntled customer who also lost data. Please tell people to stop sending emails of complaint to me. I can do nothing for them except shout “amen.”
I am now a happy customer of http://www.humyo.com
Thank you,
John Hood-not-the-MediaMax-one