We’re launched!
The new site is rockin’ and rollin’. Thanks for the awesome comments in the last post, and keep ‘em comin’ as you explore all the new features. And don’t miss the killer app inside DivShare Direct — you can now customize your Flash players with your own logo and site link, keeping your name in the limelight when you post videos, audio and slideshows around the web.
We’ll blog in more detail about each feature tonight and throughout the day tomorrow. Stay tuned!
June 12th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
loving the new changes. just one suggestion. you see how you can make it so your files can’t be downloaded. there should be an option where you can pick and choose which files you want to be downloadable and which you do not. other than that i have no complaints. the site is dope! and i’ve been a supporter since i discovered the site a few months ago. keep up the good work. PEACE
June 13th, 2007 at 12:31 am
The Dashboard is SWEET! The visual of the file types and image thumbnails is the best.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:35 am
so! that $79.95 i sent you a couple of weeks ago to get rid of the ads for a year is gone!!! the ads are back. what’s ‘free’ about blowing $79.95?????
June 13th, 2007 at 12:39 am
Hi Monty — as a DivShare Pro user, you’ll be able to sign up for a free month of DivShare Direct, and we’ll also pro-rate your payments based on your previous annual DS Pro subscription, so it’s no sweat. We’ll contact you by e-mail to firm up the details.
June 13th, 2007 at 1:42 am
hey, no sweat, indeed!
i like your logo on the player better than mine. and being able to not permit downloads makes divshare the place to go, where a user is given a choice of ways to share without downloading. thanks for making it easy for me to preview something without giving it away.
June 13th, 2007 at 2:59 am
Where are my groups ?
Is it a really evolution or a services modification ?
June 13th, 2007 at 3:02 am
Good to see a sort option though the ability to sort on other metadata like size, privacy and number of downloads is needed.
Also you really need a dropdown box to select a folder. The older/newer navigation to see your other folders is just clumsy.
June 13th, 2007 at 3:04 am
an explication : My groups always exist but I can’t see them in my Dashboard.
We cannot any more create groups ?
thx and your new site is very nice
June 13th, 2007 at 3:52 am
The groups are gone? Nooooooo!!!!! That was one of the coolest features on the site!
June 13th, 2007 at 4:15 am
Everything is great except one thing: uploading big files (100MB for example) is IMPOSSIBLE
Please do something!
Thanks!
June 13th, 2007 at 5:11 am
Uploading a largish number (say 100) of smaller files is pretty darn near impossible too!!
I have noticed that sometimes after power uploader (now called drag-and-drop-uploader) has failed after, perhaps, an hour and a half of uload time - I have to login again. Could it be that drag-and-drop-uploader requires some feedback respose from browser - and this cannot happen if one has been automatically logged-off after a certain time??!!
June 13th, 2007 at 5:22 am
I am confused regarding Pro membership / divShare direct.
Pro membership was $9.95 a month for unlimited storage. divShare Direct gives you just 10 GB of storage for $11.95 a month!
Is Pro membership to continue to be available or not?
June 13th, 2007 at 6:35 am
Hi there, i bet we all love Pro Membership, could you explain why the change to only DivShare Direct?
June 13th, 2007 at 6:52 am
Ahh….bummer about the groups.
Probably a potential legal mess in the end. Ah well…things change. Time to shower.
June 13th, 2007 at 7:00 am
Hey Divshare. Just discovered your service. Looks great. Just a couple of questions.
Is there a Pro version and a Direct version?
Can I use download managers if I sign up for Pro / Direct?
Thanks
JonD
June 13th, 2007 at 7:52 am
Quite JonD - pricing structure is looking very odd to me!
I also asked (earlier in the thread) whether Pro membership ($9.95 a month - for unlimited storage) is being abolished or retained.
If it is being abolished, then the nearest (pricewise) under divShare Direct is $11.95 a month for only 10MB of storage!
To get anywhere near to “unlimited” would be $59.95 a month for 75GB - and even that is rather less than unlimited!
Weird - “unlimited storage - online forever” - Free!! This was an absolute promise by divShare, so presumably divShare cannot take away the unlimited and forever aspects of basic membership.
So basic is free and unlimited - or pay quite a lot to get much less storage!?
Don’t get it. Needs explaining.
Are the features really worth that much?
Jeremy
June 13th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Too bad, groups are gone..
Go eSnips go!
June 13th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Nobody cares to explain why we can’t upload a 100MB file?
June 13th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Just in case I have been sounding too negative today (though I am indeed “puzzled” by the pricing structure) - I just wanted to say that the new small thumbnails on the dashboard are just brilliant!!
June 13th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Hey all - thanks for all the feedback so far (be it positive or constructively negative). I’m going to try and hit on a few things asked above:
- Direct plans start at $4.95 monthly, and include a generous amount of space and data transfer. Both these things are limited because we allow direct linking of all files (which you can’t do as a free user). You can go over your space allotment without any penalty, but the direct linking feature will be disabled for any files over that storage amount.
Also included in Direct plans is the ability to completely brand your Flash video, audio and slideshow players with your logo, which will allow you to send traffic back to your blog, profile or home page. So that’s all covered under that price, and not available to free users.
- We are discontinuing our Pro plan, but current Pro users will not lose their accounts, and are welcome to continue on the Pro plan. However, if you choose to switch to Direct, we’ll throw in a free month.
- We decided to discontinue our social features (which include groups) in an effort to get back to our core values — being a fast and reliable web host for everyone. From here, we’ll continue to add features that add true value to the site and perfect our current offerings. You can read more about our decision a couple posts down on the blog.
Feel free to drop us a line (support@divshare.com) with any questions or comments.
June 13th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Where is the forum link? Why did you get rid of it? I know I cand build my own code, but my forum users don’t have the neccessary experience…
June 13th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Dave, did you intensionally ignored my question or just missed it?
What’s the maximum allowed file size?
June 13th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I really don’t mind that you guys retired some functions, but
WHERE THE HECK
is my profile-page gone (http://www.divshare.com/profile/arturo) incl. all my Links???
PLUS: why am I not able to set in “My Account” the - Don’t show embed code for my Flash players and - Don’t allow downloads of my MP3s and videos ???
Is this feature only available to paid members??? If I check the ckeckboxes in front those options and click “Save account info”, simply nothing happenes
June 13th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Thanks Dave -
I suppose that softens the shock of ‘unlimited’ suddenly appearing to become very much limited! If under a divShare Direct plan, one goes over ones allottment of storage - which is allowed as you say above - would it be the oldest or newest (or preferably user selectable) files which could be direct linked up to the storage allottment?
June 13th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Congrats on the launch. Looks great.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Can people really start listening to Rado please pigging hell, it is a serious issue that i also am experienceing, before ANY bells n whistles get added onto this site, please please PLEASE PLEASE sort out the upload problem were all having! I cant upload higher than 40mb usually and its worse with the power uploader, thats hardly the maximum file size!
Alex
June 13th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I would like to see the groups and the profiles back. I just got my group set up and you took it down. The groups were a big decision on using DivShare for our site, or… at least let us have the profiles and friends back so that we have some control over our uploads. The new features are nice, but I prefer the old DivShare. It was more of a friendly environment.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:15 am
We’ll groups where great…
Could we at last have one page where all of our downloads could be visible?
June 14th, 2007 at 3:11 am
There’s an important and huge bad variation: There’s no direct link to images! It’s impossible right now use divshare to upload images to post in forums, blogs, etc.
Even in the dashboard you can only share the image by downloading it, not post it directly.
Please correct this!
Thomas
June 14th, 2007 at 6:43 am
What Thomas said!
What’s the point of uploading a picture to DivShare, if I can’t share it in a blog or forum without having to rewrite all the code?
June 14th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Let’s see….
You killed the profiles and groups.
You no longer post the forum link to make it easier to post our photos and mp3s inside blogs.
It’s almost impossible to keep a file from being downloaded by someone you DON’T want to download the file.
I’m missing something. Oh, yeah…it’s called ‘user friendly functionality’.
At the very least, please bring back the direct link for files and the profile pages.
June 14th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Hey John and Thomas,
Thanks for posting. We still provide direct links to all your images, we just don’t display the precise URL of your images. The new code looks like: <img src=”http://www.divshare.com/img/366856-a2c” border=”0″ />, and can be found in your sharing options list for every image you upload. As far as the removal of the BBCode for easy forum links, we took this out to simplify things, but we’ll add it to our list of possible features for our next round of upgrades.
Hope this helps, thanks for being part of the site!
June 14th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Looks like your “Big Improvements” are not so big to the people that use or used your site. I will be among the many looking for another site that will at the very least have a profile where you can CHOOSE who can download the files you want to share with family and friends.
You didn’t give the groups a chance to see how they would do. I for one, and I know many others, had just discovered this feature and it “was” growing by word of mouth. Most people don’t read your blogs to find out what is going on. I just started reading them when I tried to find my profile page and it was GONE!
You need to let people know about these features and the features that you are taking away, via email. I wasted about a month setting my group up here, only to have it destroyed overnight…and you call this an “IMPROVEMENT”? It sure wasn’t for me or any of the other groups or the people that wanted to choose who could download their files.
VERY UNHAPPY! I hope you don’t “improve” yourself out of business. The groups and profiles were what made you a step above the rest.
June 14th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Thanks Rob for your answer, i appreciate that, but i have to insist on this, because the code is much better to use if it’s a conventional address, example image.jpg. Instead of simplify things i think this solution works in the opposite way, and it’s very less “sharable”.
You offer a great service, if you can’t put an option with the direct link to image in the original format, i strongly suggest to introduce it as soon as you can.
Best Regards
Thomas
June 14th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Some month ago, I quit your service for different reasons (bad download speed, broken uploads - mainly at about 98%, etc.). I used other services, which didn’t encounter such problems. I informed my group, that I deny using your service in the future.
What brought me back, was your group and profile feature, which gave me the possibility to monitor my downloads. I just finished to change my settings, when you kicked my … ooouch - where I sit at - and eliminated your service.
Wasn’t it offered as ‘Breath Taking’ new feature, which couldn’t be found elsewhere?
By the way, you eliminated this feature after a very short time, in which you can’t get any relevant data of acceptance by members.
I totally agree with Sherrie’s comment.
Question: Have I to say Good-Bye again?
Sir Vival
June 14th, 2007 at 10:59 am
The loss of groups as well as removal of the forum code will probably prompt me to remove my files and seek service elsewhere. A new look is great, but when you drop functionality that didn’t appear to cause serious issues, then you’re going to loose users.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:12 am
I’m a new user and I just joined a group and now there is no more groups. I didn’t even have time to put up a profile. As I read this blog what I am getting is that you started with a format that wasn’t bringing in the number of users you wanted for your service. So, you added other features, profiles and groups, that were bringing in more users. Now, you are reverting to the old format, just upgrading the look and expect to retain the users you attracted by the now defunct added features. This logic fails me. It seemed to be a nice site, just not for me.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Hey guys, thanks for all your comments and feedback. We really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to post your thoughts on the new site — even if you don’t like every move we make, we’re happy to have you involved.
On some of the sharing issues (images, forums), we’re going to make some tweaks to the system tonight to address a lot of those suggestions, so watch out for that.
With regard to groups and profiles, we do value all our members who came to the site as a result of these features. The reason that we retired them wasn’t to alienate anyone, but instead to help our team focus on what really gives DivShare a competitive advantage — our fast, simple file hosting. Because there are so many group sites out there, we decided not to maintain a feature that had been slow to catch on and wasn’t really accomplishing our primary mission, to be the web host for everyone.
That said, the real value of groups wasn’t just the community but also the part of DivShare that still exists — the ability to host an unlimited number of files forever. You can still take advantage of this, and it’s easy to move your community’s actual web page to a similar service — a Blogger blog, a Google group, a Facebook group, or a forum — and still take advantage of our core hosting service for free.
We’re sorry for any inconvenience the changes have caused, and we really appreciate all the time and effort you’ve put into building your groups and growing the site. As always, please feel free to e-mail us with any more questions or comments. We’ll have some cool new updates over the next couple days, so stay tuned!
June 14th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Just one question. Are you going to at the VERY least, give us back the profiles? If not, I will stop recommending your site. I think the feature to CHOOSE who can view my files was an important part of this site. It was the reason I came here. It was that feature that put you ahead of the numerous other sites. Without that, you are just another file server like so many others that start out awesome and slowly begin the process of losing members. If I upload a video of my family, I do NOT want to share that with ANYONE other than family or friends that I CHOOSE, Not every Tom, Dick, or Harry that happens to stumble across my files.
June 14th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Hi Sherrie, although we won’t be bringing back profiles, we will be introducing some new privacy features in the coming days to replace the group privacy settings. It’s also important to note that there’s no public search interface for users to find your DivShare files, so it’s almost impossible for someone to stumble upon them unless you post a link to the file elsewhere on the internet. Thanks as always for your feedback.
June 14th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I signed up for the Pro plan more or less immediately but have used the service very little. I’ve had hardly any success with FTP uploads (connection closed because too many connections or generally unable to connect, loss of connection when halfway through a big upload, etc.). I did contact you and was told that they were just teething problems that would be sorted out soon.
Even worse, there is still no sign of download manager support (as I was told there would be soon). Without D/L managers, the downloading process is very slow and shaky. I also contacted you about that and was told that download managers would shortly be possible.
I personally thought that there were too many bells and whistles and would have been happy just to see the two most important things optimized: uploading and downloading. Without these two factors being reliable, a file sharing site can’t possibly compete with the likes of RS.
Now, of course, I’m particularly disappointed to see that while I was waiting for the uploading/downloading to become stable, the whole offer has changed. And, as I understand it, even those who sign up for the (much more expensive) Direct service, still won’t be able to count on using download managers. (I have a feeling anyway that Divshare have priced themselves right out of the market by abandoning the unlimted Pro plan for the very limited Direct plan - after all companies like RS offer unlimited space and allow direct downloading at a very very cheap rate). Couldn’t the Pro plan have existed side by side with the Direct plan?
Sorry for going on so much but it’s so frustrating to see so many changes without having been able to take advantage of the Pro plan I paid for in the belief that 1) uploading and downloading would be rapid, efficient and reliable and that 2) the space for my files would always be unlimited.
Colin
June 14th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
I want my groups back.
I understood there would be a grace period for the existance of groups even if you would remove them in the future, and in the meantime new features would be introduced. Where the heck was that grace period. All my file sharing is worthless today unless I start to run and maintain an access restricted database based archive system on my own. Yeah, thanks for the storage space and streaming, sure, but hey, I won’t ever believe one of your promises again.
Once again: You REALLY want me to try ANY one of your new features, should there be some? You do? Haha. Let’s get this straight. It will still take some time until you get your business model and strategic feature set consolidated. Until then, we’ll see a lot of new fetures come and go I guess, no?
Oh, one more thing. Why not stop this “watch out for tonight’s new features” rhethorics? Sure you’re kings of your hill there. Yet if you ever want to become a reliable service provider — not in the sense of data traffic but in the sense of dependability — why not start right now and name features upfront? And BEFORE you remove features on which your users rely?
I understand your service is not exactly trivial to operate. I’ve suffered from the streamload/mediamax procedure in last autumn. Therefore I know it could still be worse. Yet you’re not really implementing a platform migration. The whole thing is well under control at your end. SO why not improve the process.
Cheers.
June 14th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Rob, I KNOW better than to believe that nobody can access my files unless I have a way to make them private.
I had a file I uploaded, did not make private (this was before the groups and profiles were available), and within an hour, I was showing five downloads.
And, no, I had not visited the link to make sure it worked.
So, basically, unless you can guarantee privacy on the files I upload (via a profile page or something similar), and can but the BBCode links back in so we can actually LINK the pictures into a blog or forum, then I guess I’ll have to find another service.
Too bad, too…your site had such promise, and was making me VERY happy!
June 14th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Hey John, you’ll be happy to hear that I am about to put up a new post announcing all those features :). Have a great night,
Rob
June 14th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
John,
I too had uploaded a file that I shared with NO ONE to test Rob’s reply to me. Guess what? 3 downloads of that file. The link was NEVER posted ANYWHERE except uploaded to this site. I had even made the file PRIVATE, when I went to check it tonight, it was set to public (NOT BY ME!)…and it was downloaded 3 times. Rob needs to know that when you have sites like this one, people have ways of getting your files. Without the profile and the options returned to us, this is goodbye for me. This site is NOT safe with the “improvements” they made. I will be removing the file and going elsewhere.
It IS too bad…I was happy too, now, I’d not think of putting anymore files on here. It’s just like RS… people goggle, they find. This is pure BS.
If you stay here at DivShare please KNOW, people CAN get your files without you posting them ANYWHERE. As for my group members, I’ll be making sure they all know this and other groups should warn their members also.
June 15th, 2007 at 5:48 am
Sherrie, you should know that when you go to the download page of a file, it automatically counts as one download even though you didn’t actually “download” the file.
So it was probably just you. As far as I know the file links are chosen randomly so the odds of someone guessing the address are quite low.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Mike, You should know I checked my dashboard page ONCE. Which was just before I posted the above information. I didn’t log on before then. I know how DivShare works. I know that they count downloads when someone visits a page, which was why I waited all day before checking. Since we no longer have profiles, my dashboard page no longer has a personal url, so you tell me how anyone could find my dashboard. Trust me, they have ways.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
i’mma have to agree with a few folks. when i peeped the changes i hadn’t realized that the profiles were gone…BOOOOO!!
i still use the site though. just saying. having a profile was great.
June 16th, 2007 at 9:19 am
I’ve got some questions about Divshare Direct
By Divshare Direct, if you pass the 5GB storage. Will you still be able to upload 2GB files with ftp?
And if you’re reached the 10GB datatransfer. Will the file get deleted or will you get a normal link?
Hope you make some time to answer these questions
June 16th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Hey Ruud,
If you reach your storage limit, you just won’t be able to upload any additional files. However we’re working on some tweaks that will separate your “free files” from your “direct files”, so you’ll never really run out of space.
If you run out of data transfer, the files will not be deleted, your players and links will just become normal again — they will either go to a download page or show the DivShare logo. Hope this helps!
June 16th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
I like that you’re trying to please your members, but I gotta say, that feature of having groups, so we could decide which people we wanted to see our files, was SO sweet! ::getting on knees:: Oh please, don’t drop this feature, it’s the one true thing, along with the upload amount, that truly keeps me as a happy customer! Please, reconsider, I’m sure you just had no idea how many of us would be unhappy if you decided to think this was something dispensable.. It’s Nottttttt!
Thank you…
June 17th, 2007 at 6:53 am
I left message three days ago and I’m disappointed to see that nobody from Divshare has taken the trouble to reply to me, even though I’m a Pro member with problems.
Are there any other members out there who would like to be able to use download managers?
I’ve checked around the net and I think that Divshare are the only file hosting service that doesn’t allow Premium members to use download managers. And now that Premium has been replaced by Direct, I’m afraid they’re also one of the most expensive.
Of course, if upload and dowload really were maximized, some of us might still be prepared to pay the price for reliability and speed. Will this ever be possible?
June 18th, 2007 at 2:09 am
Like many others, I’m so sorry to see the end of Profiles and especially the Groups feature. I was just getting used to it and it’s gone. I don’t suppose it matters what a small user such as I, says. We always get overlooked. I was hoping this site was different. Obviously not. Such a shame.
June 25th, 2007 at 10:50 am
I’m a new user.
Tried a lot of this services, the best are limited to 1GB, unfortunately.
But my first enthousiasm is gone a litle bit.
The mp3 players isn’t working very well (my mp3’s are played much to fast like DonaldDuck is singing).
The upload speed is great but the downloadspeed is poor.
I can’t public share my files in different folders on the same page.