The blog is back, and we’ve got some great announcements about the future of DivShare. Over the past two months, we’ve been building up our network of servers, working with new partners and investors, even turning down some big buyout offers. Today, we’ll start to unveil the new features and changes that will make DivShare the most powerful and professional media and document-sharing tool on the web in 2008.

If you’ve been using the site this week, you may already have noticed a big improvement in download and page load speed. That’s just the beginning of the server upgrades and new features we’ll be rolling out in the coming months. The first round of changes — all of which will make DivShare a faster, more stable site for all our users — will affect the storage and bandwidth allowances on user accounts.

From here on out, free users will get 5 GB of storage space and 50 GB of downloads (data transfer) per month. Premium users will be able to upgrade to as much as 10 times that amount — and take advantage of ad-free pages, hotlinking, FTP uploading and more. You can check out all the plans on the new signup page.

So, the big questions: why are we making this change, and who will this affect? We’ve mapped out the new plans so that less than 1 in 10 current users will need to upgrade. In fact, 99% of users use less than 5 GB of storage, and 90% of users serve less than 50 GB of downloads each month. We’re making the change because a very small group of users is using a very large amount of bandwidth and storage space, and by doing so is degrading the DivShare experience for the rest of our 250,000 members. The new system will keep our servers much faster and more reliable, and members with lots of popular files will still be able to take advantage of DivShare through one of our upgraded accounts.

The new tracking system will go live tonight, but we’ll have a week grace period during which no accounts will be affected if they go over their storage or download limits. On January 24, you’ll need to be below the storage limit to upload a new file, and you’ll need to be below the download limit to serve new downloads.

As always, we love to hear your comments and suggestions, and we’re here to help anyone who has questions about how the changes may affect them. We’ll be updating the blog non-stop from here on out with new features, upgrade announcements, partnership news and more.

Enjoy the faster, more reliable site, and drop us a line any time.

Update: To reiterate, no files will be deleted as part of this change. You can keep all the files currently in your account, even if it’s over the storage limit. However, you will not be able to upload new files until you upgrade or make some extra room. Also, if you’re using a lot of space but not a lot of bandwidth, we can set you up with a custom account — just drop us an e-mail from the Enterprise page.

Today we’re proud to introduce our new Facebook application, Projects. It’s a project-management system built right into Facebook that allows you to share your documents and media with friends inside invitation-only projects. We like to call it the one of the first useful Facebook apps — not that we don’t like Pirates vs. Ninjas. It’s a great way to collaborate with classmates and co-workers who are already your Facebook friends, and to easily keep all your notes, documents, images and other files in one safe place.

» Check out the Projects Facebook App

We’ve also created a quick screenshot tour that sheds some more light on the process of creating a project, inviting your friends and sharing your files (and wall posts) once you’ve got things going. Another great feature — our Flash documents, video and audio are fully supported, so you can view all those files right on the Facebook page. Enjoy!

Great news for all current and future DivShare Direct users: you can now view all your documents and media without ads! From today on, visiting the download page of any of your files will be a completely ad-free experience, and for your Direct files, visitors to your download pages won’t see any advertising either. Check out an example of an ad-free DivShare here. Upgrade your account today for as low as $5 a month here. And as always, drop us a line with any questions or comments.

Last night we launched a new design for our embedded video player, providing both a graphical overhaul and some new customization options. The new player allows you to switch between an “overlay” and “static” progress bar — you can make the choice by clicking the new “customize” link under the embed code on the video’s download page. Here are some examples of the new styles:

Overlay (default):

Static:

Current embeds will still display in the old player, because the old embed code isn’t perfectly backwards compatible with the new player. If you want to update any of your videos, just head to the download page and grab the new code. We’re also launching the Flash MP3 playlist and a new Facebook app shortly. Enjoy!

Great news for developers — today we’re officially launching the DivShare API for the public. The API, or application programming interface, allows web programmers to interact with DivShare’s server to upload files and get information from our database, all within their own applications.

With the API you can…
• Log in to a DivShare account
• Upload new files
• Retrieve info about current files
• Easily create embeds for video, audio, documents and slideshow

And you can create…
• Apps and widgets for accessing DivShare, like the iPhone App
• Sites that use DivShare as the backend for media and document sharing
• Privately branded media-sharing sites with the help of DivShare Direct

And, of course, the only limit is your imagination. You can read all about it on the new API Documentation page. Though this release is fully functional, it should be considered Beta software while we work out any initial bugs and continue development. If you have questions, check out the API Developers Google Group or drop us a support e-mail.

Hit the Google Group with all your comments, ideas and suggestions. Enjoy!

» Start using the DivShare API

To celebrate all our new features, we’re offering a free month of DivShare Direct to everyone who signs up before the end of the day on Monday. It’s a great (and risk-free) way to try out the cool features that come with the Direct upgrade, including:

• Your link and logo on your video, audio and slideshow players
• Direct links to all your files — no download pages
• FTP uploading, and a 2 GB max file size

» Try DivShare Direct for Free

Next week, we’re also rolling out a brand new video player with some really cool new skinning and logo options, so this is a great opportunity to try those new features for free once they launch. If you haven’t checked out all of today’s updates, don’t miss the document viewer, iPhone application and great press coverage.

Our coolest new feature of the day is the document viewer, which allows you to read all your PDFs, Word documents and PowerPoint presentations right on your DivShare download page. When you upload one of these files, we’ll now convert it to Flash — you can view it without downloading and grab the embed code to add it to your own site. Here’s an example of the output for a Word document:

Pretty cool, right? It makes things easier for all of us who have spent a lifetime waiting for Acrobat, Word and PowerPoint to load just so we can check out a document — and it means you can share those files with people who don’t have that software at all. And, of course, you’ll always be able to download the original file.

Try it out by uploading your own documents today, and watch out next week for the public launch of our API, as well as an awesome new Facebook application. If for any reason you don’t want your documents converted, you’ll find an option to turn it off in your My Account preferences. Enjoy!

If you’re lucky enough to have an iPhone, we’ve got some great news. You can now access your DivShare dashboard through our specially designed iPhone interface, available at www.divshare.com/iphone. It’s a great way to keep your files with you wherever you go — you can search your files, download any file in your account and quickly e-mail any file to your friends and colleagues.

We’re also launching our API next week, which will allow you to develop your own apps on top of the DivShare platform. If you’re interested in trying it prior to the official launch, request the Beta client and we’ll hook you up right away.

» Try the DivShare iPhone App

Last night we rolled out a brand new DivShare home page as well as a bunch of new features, which we’ll describe in more detail over the next few posts. The news also earned us a glowing post on TechCrunch, one of the web’s most influential technology blogs. Here’s an excerpt:

Most of those services stop being free when you need extra space or extra bandwidth. Honestly it is really hard to find out your way in the jungle. But if you are a heavy user or are only interested in hosting and controlling sharing options you might want to consider a one-stop shop like DivShare that has been here a for few months. They are starting to release today a series of innovations that will make the service more unique and attractive.

» TechCrunch - DivShare’s Upgrades its One-Stop-Shop Hosting Service

And another great review on VentureBeat, plugging our latest upgrades:

DivShare, one of the best in the ever expanding mass of mostly undifferentiated file hosting and sharing services, has just added a flash-based document viewer to its offerings, which include photo slideshow, video, and music players.

» VentureBeat - DivShare Adds Document Viewer

We’re hard at work on an API to allow developers to interact with DivShare in their own applications, and we’re looking for a few good beta testers to help us work all the bugs out — and, of course, suggest features and changes to make the final product the best it can be. If you’re a DivShare fan and a web developer, drop us a line at support@divshare.com, and we’ll fill you in. Thanks!