Informed Networker Blog

I doubt many people will notice or miss The Linkup aka. MediaMax aka. Streamload. But I was surprised (somewhat) when I received the email from The Linkup informing me that they were closing down. Not so surprised because of the quality of their service - but because they had been struggling for so long. Why stop now?

Streamload was a fascinating company that allowed individuals to upload files through a web-based interface. It differentiated itself from the competition with high limits - 25 GB - and no file size caps. It rebranded itself as MediaMax and released a software application that had potential. It allowed for uploading/downloading and backups. Unfortunately, the software stagnated for month after month and then the big crash came. A developer wrote code that began chewing through not just unneeded files but also active needed ones. MediaMax never recovered.

At first there was very little communication from MediaMax, then they began blogging but blog entry after blog entry stated only, “We are having difficulties…We are working on them…Bear with us.” Then, finally, MediaMax decided to rebrand yet again - this time to The Linkup. This was when I abandoned all hope for utilizing the service in any useful way. The Linkup abandoned many of MediaMax’s old principles and the distinctives that had made MediaMax so useful - instead choosing to become another run of the mill online storage platform with 2 GB file limits and expensive(r) prices. Whereas MediaMax had offered massive storage accounts to companies for reasonable prices, Linkup was clearly focused on consumers only.

What made the entire scenario more interesting was the relation between these three companies that were actually one and another company - Nirvanix. Nirvanix is currently blossoming and challenging incumbent Amazon in the cloud storage arena, but the relationship between MediaMax and Nirvanix will forever haunt it. With essential original brainpower coming from MediaMax to Nirvanix and the close relationship the two appeared to have (even though Nirvanix refutes any close relationship between the two and suggests that the downturn of the business came after the intellectual powers moved from MediaMax to Nirvanix) - people can’t help but wonder…

Still, I personally would utilize Nirvanix. In fact I’ve spent some time testing out various aspects of their service. Its a pretty nifty service and offers some significant advantages over Amazon AWS S3 - for example no file size limits (this is huge!) and a CIFS NAS application that creates a virtual NAS server that actually utilizes Nirvanix storage. Granted, the CIFS NAS is still in early beta - but its a killer feature if Nirvanix can make it work.

Would I put all my most valuable files up on Nirvanix? Sure, but I’d probably want a copy somewhere else, just in case…maybe even over at Amazon. Of course this is cost prohibitive for any business with significant amounts of file storage. What will really be a killer application is when someone uses an advanced parity algorithm to distribute files across multiple cloud based storage providers allowing any given provider to fail while maintaining data integrity and yet reducing total costs due to storage size on any given storage provider to be minimal over placing all storage on one provider.

Nirvanix has some dark shadows around it. No, its not their fault. But its sort of like when you have a friend who is a little crazy - the reputation rubs off. Maybe thats one reason The Linkup closed their doors? Their continued presence was causing that shadow to reflect on Nirvanix.

Finally, its worth noting that MediaMax suffered from a catastrophic mistake, but the majority of our businesses are not that far from a similar mistake. Just watch the tech. news and the daily catastrophes - whether from without or within. Our architecture is still so frail - just like our own mortality.