Just a quick update for those of you who did not take part in our early Rapidshare Leech trial.
We are currently testing an amazing feature on RaviShare - registered and Premium users are allowed to download files from Rapidshare without download delay (similar to Rapidshare Premium account privileges). For now there is a quota of 10 and respectively 25 downloads / day for each registered / Premium account.

We hope you will enjoy it and we are looking forward to your feedback.

Best regards,
Mark S.

We are currently testing a different player for our preview feature - this one allows .mp3 and .flv files to be pseudo-streamed directly from the website.

Ravishare is not a video-sharing platform like Youtube, so there will be no server-side encoding in the near future. Only .flv and .mp3 files can be previewed online, and the player configuration is limited to the minimum for now.

In order to preserve bandwidth, unregistered users have direct access only to the first 30s in preview, after which they are required to register or fill in a survey as a temporary measure.

Once again, just like we asked in the beginning, please refrain from sharing files for which you do not own the intellectual rights. They will be taken offline once reported and the account banned without reimbursement in the case of Premium users.

Thank you for your support and interest in our service.

The RaviShare Team

The scrubbing of downloads was completed by 22H00 GMT and the mass payment file uploaded to PayPal. Special request payouts have been done using Moneybookers.

Some users claimed their Premium Points in time, but did not confirm their PayPal address. We have e-mailed everyone in this situation and their well-deserved payments will be honored upon confirmation. Because of this we cannot announce yet the total sum of payouts, but we can tell it's a four-digit number. Well done, everybody!

The learnings from this opening campaign will be used to improve the Premium Points system. Some of the limitations will be lifted, and we hope you will welcome the changes.

Once again, many thanks for your interest and continous support!

The RaviShare Team

We will begin scrubbing the downloads today and continue tomorrow.
Those who registered Paypal accounts will receive their commissions there. Alternatively you can notify us by using the contact form and send in your Moneybookers account.
A new point conversion system will start on 01/07/2009. We have received requests from some of the most active RaviShare users to relax the files/size/downloads limits and you will see a new value of the point in action. The affiliate links have also been very successful, with some users bringing over 30 new registrations under their accounts.
Unconverted points following this change will not be changed at the new value.

The other rules will stay - full downloads only (no previews), one download/file/IP and banning of all accounts found in breach of the rules.

Thank you for your support!

The RaviShare Team

Update 23/06/2009

The server returned to normal performance levels. We blame the slow response on the large number of downloads (over 40 simultaneously) of the same file from IPs located in Asia. Some of the learnings taken from this incident will be used to shape the future versions of our service.

Thank you for your interest and patience during the incident.


Original Message

One of our fileservers, located in New York, is extremely slow.
A ticket has been raised with the service provider managing it.
While the issue is being looked into we have stoped uploads to that particular server. Downloads from various parts of the world are reportedly slow (128-160kbps), but the server remains online and responding.

We will return with updates once available.

The RaviShare Team

Update 23:00 GMT+1 18/06/2009

The transfer to the new server is complete. There are still an impressive number of parameters to adjust, as well as in-depth testing to be performed before we conclude the migration.
Some Internet providers might cache DNS entries and still direct their clients to the old installation. These records might take 24-48H to update..

Once again many thanks for your patience and support.

Original Message:
The migration of www.ravishare.com to a new server will start soon. All the file servers will remain in place, and the uploads that need to be copied over represent less than 5% of the files currently available for download.

The direct links active while we take the last snapshot might expire in more than 6H (their current life span). If your downloads are affected by this, please generate the links again and let us know if the download cannot be resumed.

We plan to initiate DNS propagation of the new records later tonight (18-06-2009) and have everything back in place before the weekend. As always please follow ravishare on Twitter for important updates.

The RaviShare Team

Probably unrelated with the latest updates, the load on our servers has increased continously for the past two days.

Our present setup is more than able to provide the bandwidth and diskspace required, yet we are concerned about the host serving the main interface (the frontend of ravishare.com). The scripting done in the background is quite CPU-intensive, and written with reliability in mind, rather than performance. The number of connections to the MySQL database is also insufficient sometimes, causing temporary breakdowns in the service.

Over the next week we will be brainstorming for solutions, especially the growth-friendly type. The last thing we want is a service down every other day either by upgrades or overload. If you notice things are not going smoothly, please be patient and consider trying again after a little while. We are aware of the problem and working to its resolution.

Thank you for your interest and continous support.

Mark Spades

Over the last 24H we have noticed a large number of files that violate the copyright of their respective owners. The users responsible for this have been notified through e-mail and given an 1H ultimatum to remove the files themselves.

Ravishare is not a host of warez or any other copyright-infringing material. Failure to comply with our terms will lead to termination of your account and all the necessary legal proceedings.

The RaviShare Team

The update to the latest version of the website was completed, but not without surprises and unexpected delays.

The folder system is now available to users; the same goes for the remote upload function. The catalog has been revamped and given advanced search features.

We did not neglect the social network aspect either - the upload results page has been slightly changed to improve usability and provide a more intuitive layout for the anonymous Twitter feature.

Users can now advertise a referral/affiliate link and get points for each new registered account open. Some bonuses were converted to money and paid via Moneybookers during the same period of time. That speaks a lot about unfortunate timing.

Most of the changes happened in the background - the core logic and the administration interface were the main target of this upgrade.

Overall we hope the downtime did not affect anyone too seriously. We learned a lot, and hopefully upgrades will go smoothly next time.

Due to the distributed nature of our service, we are still monitoring everything closely. Please do not hesitate to contact us for any questions or concerns.

Many thanks for your support and patience,

The RaviShare Team

Update 10th of June, 2009
The main server is working again with the new version of the script. Currently we are experiencing problems with one of the file servers, but these will be solved soon.

Thank you for you support.

Mark S.

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Update
We are experiencing some difficulties with the upgrade and probably a delay of several hours before returning to normal operations.
One of our scripting experts is working on the issue, which currently relates to the handling of sessions by the new version.

This News entry will continue to be updated as we make progress.

Many thanks for your patience.

Mark Spades

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Original Entry:

We are currently testing a new version of our website. Lots of efforts go into limiting the downtime and keeping all the files/users untouched while we implement it in production.

The first stage will begin around 15H00 GMT on 09/06/2009, when all new uploads will be suspended. Downloads will still be available from all servers.

The second stage will probably start from 17H00 GMT, when downloads will stop working as well or work erratically.

From 19H00 GMT we will start to bring back the different servers one by one. If all goes well, we expect to resume normal operations from 21H00 GMT onwards. If your download link is not working in this interval, it might be because that particular server has not been updated yet.
Please be patient and let us know of any problems encountered with the system after 21H00 and we will do our best to fix it as soon as possible.

In the unlikely event that we might experience data loss, please keep a copy of your files offline. Only paid Premium Account users will benefit from a separate backup for their files.

This message was also sent to all registered users via e-mail.
Thank you for your understanding.

The RaviShare Team

We were absolutely delighted to see that Mani Karthik, the "Internet Enthusiast" behind the SEO blog mentioned in the title discovered and commented positively our service. Thank you, Mani - and the same goes to all using our website, mentioning it to friends and providing us with feedback.

Best regards,
The RaviShare Team

If you are familiar with filehosting providers you have already noticed that uploading multiple files at the same time is not exactly everybody's cup of tea.

The feature has been present on ravishare.com from day one for registered and premium users. Since we added a new server to our farm, we decided to allow even unregistered* visitors to use it - so now you can upload up to three files from the home page without logging on - it takes you exactly 10 clicks (we tried, assuming the Browse button opens directly the source folder on your computer).

Registered users can upload up to five files at a time, and premium users an whooping eight.

Happy sharing!
The RaviShare Team



*The unregistered access to multi-uploads might be retired at any time

We have received questions about ravishare.com, especially on the integration with Twitter. Instead of answering every individual e-mail, Mark put together a second video - this time a walkthrough of sending the link to an uploaded file via Twitter. You can find it here.

There was also a minor improvement to the "Tweet This" function - now you can enter multiple Twitter names in the textbox and Ravishare will announce every recipient individually about your upload with an @-reply from @ravishare. Test it and let us know what you think.

Best regards,
The RaviShare Team

Mark Spades from our team put together a 2min tutorial about uploading files and tweeting the download links from ravishare.com. You can find it here.
Let us know if you find it useful - we hope to cover more topics soon.

Best regards,
The RaviShare Team

We have just registered the first Abuse report on a copyright issue.
Fortunately it was made properly, so we could at least investigate and take action accordingly. This is a sign the website is becoming increasingly popular, besides an opportunity to display our good faith in fighting copyright infringement.
Please do not use the website to upload any files without the agreement of the authors/owners.

Best regards,
The RaviShare Team

Update 23/05/2009

To make things even more interesting we are offering an exceptional payout of 0.05USD/download. Certain conditions apply:

- Max file size for participation is 100MB. You are allowed to split files and downloads of each share will still be counted.
- For each file only the first 100 validated downloads will be taken into account, but you are allowed to upload the same file again and resume with a different link.
- Max 25 files can be made simultaneously available from one account in the program. Downloads of manually deleted files are not validated.
- Payments are done for each 200 validated downloads in your account (10$ increments) at the end of each month.
- To be validated, a download must be initiated and completed from an unique IP address (multiple downloads of the same file from the same IP are counted only once).
- You are responsible for any copyright infringement resulting from publishing a file on the website. Complaints will be actioned and files taken offline.
- Attempts to gamble the system will be sanctioned by canceling the account and all due payments.
- Enrollment in the program will be probationary for the first two months.
- You can post adult material as long as it does not violate anyone's privacy.
- You can advertise the download links on forums or in social networks.
- The previews (for pictures and MP3) are not counted as downloads; the user must transfer the file to his/her computer to validate the download.

Please e-mail support if you have any questions prior to submitting your files to avoid disappointment.

Original message from 21/05/2009

Today we launched the first incentive program on ravishare.com.
Some of the registered users received an offer inviting them to upload files on the site and receive payment for each download from an unique IP address.
If you were using the website in anonymous mode but are interested in this program, please sign in and send a message using the contact form. Every application will be reviewed individually.

Kind regards,
The RaviShare Team

After two weeks of service we started receiving reviews from users on three continents. Uploads are reported above 2.3Mpbs and downloads vary between 1.6Mbps and a whooping 5.4Mbps - all numbers are consistently in line with our projections and still leaving plenty of room to scale up with our growing popularity.

The Twitter following of @ravishare topped 150 users, but since this is a function account rather than a social form of interaction, we think of it as a nice compliment to our service.

Next week (13-19/04/2009) we will start distributing the load between servers hosted in different data centers. It is not required by the present usage level, but more a demonstration of RaviShare's technical capabilities. The change should not impact service uptime and will be followed by several more weeks of intensive testing.

Five users that registered with us for additional benefits were rewarded with 30-days upgrade to Premium accounts, after which they will return to normal privileges. It was our way of thanking them for their curiosity and willingness to try the service.

This is all for now. For those celebrating Easter, we wish you happy holidays and easy sharing.

The RaviShare Team

We are delighted to announce that 5 tracks* from UK band Georgia Wonder are hosted on our file sharing service and available for download from our catalogue section (Public).
Georgia Wonder is Stephanie Grant (vocals) and Julian Moore (music) - you can follow them on Twitter as @georgiawonder and preview their tunes straight from the file page (even before downloading**).


Thank you, Georgia Wonder - and happy sharing to all of you!

The RaviShare Team


* The songs are released under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike v3.0 license
** The embedded MP3 player will only open files up to 10MB in size. As the tracks have a bit-rate of 320Kbps (high quality encoding) they are too large to be played from the webpage, except for "Falling down".

Starting today ravishare.com is fully functional for BETA testing.

The [Tweet This] button is active and all you need to do is enter a Twitter @handle before hitting it to send the TinyURL link of your upload from our @ravishare account.

This answers one of your main requirements - tweeting a link without sharing your Twitter password with us.
The other option to do this remains the ShareThis button - use it to send the link via e-mail, post to more social networks etc.

The service is still running from our development server - once the load increases we will transfer it to another box.

To encourage testing the RaviShare Twitter account will be manned up to a few hours a day and we will be giving away free upgrades to Premium for a month to selected users.

Please DM or use the contact form to get in touch with a member of our team directly if required.

Kind regards,
The RaviShare Team

We are not collecting your e-mail address to SPAM you later, but as main means of protecting the website from abuse and allowing you to retrieve your password in the event of losing it.

Please try to register a valid address. The Terms and Conditions will be updated to reflect our no-SPAM policy.

Thank you for your understanding.

The RaviShare Team