File sharing hosts.

I'm starting to work on popularizing a file-sharing site as my part-time job next week, so I'd like to find out ahead of time what constitutes your loyal use/disuse of a certain file-sharing service. Regarding the positives and negatives of:

- General files: megaupload, rapidshare, mediafire, sendspace, yousendit, 4shared, etc...

- Image files: photobucket, tinypic, imageshack, etc..

- Media files*: imeem, youtube, musicshake, ...
* illegally pirated content

There are many aspects that attract certain types of users: speed, convenience, organization, anonymity, technical advantages, etc... Which ones do you take into consideration when judging a service's quality?

I'd greatly appreciate any help provided.

Download speed and nothing more.

Lots of intrusive ads gets really annoying (e.g. imageshack, rapidshare), so I tend to not use those.

What I always liked about some sharing sites is that registration is optional, so you can still use it while being lazy (mediafire), but registering an account gives some benefits.

And since you mentioned it, nobody wants to use a slow file sharing host, so uhh...speed important.

Also, while not completely their fault, some sites have tiny size limits. Come on, 100 MB?

I like free space. Lots of it.

Does anyone here feel compelled to use a certain service out of habit?
"I started using this as my first experience and since it's working fine I don't think I have a need to change."

I use Tinypic for a few reasons

• Login is ontop and easy
  
• Uploading is on the front page (Although I'd like to see a multiple upload option)
  
• It saves my uploads
  
• URLs are nice and short and easy
  
• It's got a simple UI. No annoying links to copy, or ads like with ImageShack

Same things apply to Mediafire + Mediafire doesn't...

• Require a 30-60 second wait
  
• Hoar me about buying an account
  
• fill the thing with ads
  

Limit on 100 MB file size bugs me...

I use drop.io for almost everything and Filedropper because I have a 250GB account on there.

I use Tinypic for a few reasons

• Login is ontop and easy
  
• Uploading is on the front page (Although I'd like to see a multiple upload option)
  
• It saves my uploads
  
• URLs are nice and short and easy
  
• It's got a simple UI. No annoying links to copy, or ads like with ImageShack

Same things apply to Mediafire + Mediafire doesn't...

• Require a 30-60 second wait
  
• Hoar me about buying an account
  
• fill the thing with ads
  

Limit on 100 MB file size bugs me...

Mostly this and MediaFire allows multiple DLs at once. That's awesome, that and no waiting time.

Oh, and photobucket just because I have like an album.

So I can sum up a few points:

• download speed
  
• multiple simultaneous upload
  
• orderly file management
  
• Large storage (specially dedicated to Bacon)
  
• limited ads
  
• no bitching attitude about sign-ups

Do you guys think you'll like to use a service that offers general upload for newbie use, detailed upload for more advanced use, like a mini photobucket album if you check your "Image" folder, that and a built-in media player when you check your "Media" folder? I'm trying to promote easy and effective file management on this site.

That'd be great. Where do I sign up to start using that beauty?

-A good resonable download speed.
-Waiting time is alright like the 25 seconds for Megaupload to prep the file.
-NO download limit or waiting time between file. this is why i like mediafire over megaupload or rapidshare. Megaupload has like a 1gb cap for ever like 3hours. And Rapidshare is even worse.
-Parralel downloads would be ideal but not nessacary.

-NO download limit or waiting time between file. this is why i like mediafire over megaupload or rapidshare. Megaupload has like a 1gb cap for ever like 3hours. And Rapidshare is even worse.

How many kinds of limitation are there to this?
- 2 downloads/day
- 1gb/30hrs
- ???

I use Tinypic for a few reasons

• Login is ontop and easy
  
• Uploading is on the front page (Although I'd like to see a multiple upload option)
  
• It saves my uploads
  
• URLs are nice and short and easy
  
• It's got a simple UI. No annoying links to copy, or ads like with ImageShack

Same things apply to Mediafire + Mediafire doesn't...

• Require a 30-60 second wait
  
• Hoar me about buying an account
  
• fill the thing with ads
  

Limit on 100 MB file size bugs me...

Similar to this, except I use Sendspace and not Mediafire because I just happened to get sent something through it not long before my first upload of anything. So I went there and stuck with it.

How many kinds of limitation are there to this?
- 2 downloads/day
- 1gb/30hrs
- ???

From what I've seen, Megaupload has like a 1gb cap for every 2-3 hours
and Rapidshare is like 1gb for over 4hrs...It's pretty suckish.

Honestly I think mediafire is the best one out there for download, the problem is that the upload max for free users is 100mb so not alot of people use it for videos. If there was a site that had mediafire downloading with a large upload limit it would be the best.

Does anyone else have a rather unique preference, like Bacon's fetish for sizes?

Also, this is what I sent to my boss and he seems to have approved.

+ Preferred features, collected from file-sharing users:

- download speed (checked)
- limited ads (checked)
- optional registration with better file management ability for registered users (checked)
- large size limitation per upload (ours is currently 200MB)
- saves previous uploads (preferably up to 3 recent uploads) even on anonymous mode
- shortened url (checked)
- simple UI (checked)
- short wait before download (checked)
- multiple simultaneous downloads (checked)
- NO/LITTLE download restriction: 1gb every 30mins, 5 downloads per day per IP address, waiting time between downloads, etc...


+ Suggestions:

- Allow "Folder Management": "Image"/"Video" folder would have an album with thumbnails for preview (125x125 should be enough), "Data" folder will have a more compact look to support a broad vision and control of multiple files,


- Allow multi-funtionality:
* Direct link for hot-linking images: (example: http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm236...otoro2.jpg)
* Direct media player for images/audios/videos: a built-in media player (example: http://eng.musicshake.com/Listen/Song/So..._NUM=49718)

 possible site advertisement?

He also stated his purpose of making the site rather an online "file management", with optional features totally at the user's disposal (on or off, lol). In theory, what we're aiming to achieve is to provide you what you need to access, modify your files WHILE sharing them. Someone uploaded their pdf file to our site and sent you? Oh, but you don't have a pdf editor? Here, check "view pdf" in your user CP.

This seems somewhat a huge hassle for the host while benefit is vaguely imaginable, so please let me know what you guys think of it as different kinds of users. Also, if anyone could think of a list of possible types of file-sharing users, I would much appreciate it. Of course, there's porn uploaders, there's regular users, but what could be the other uses?

I await my impending perma ban.

This is kind of the same as "limited ads", but NO POPUPS. I don't mind regular ads, but popups are obnoxious.

A download limit that's reasonable. I don't remember which file hosting site it is, but one of them only allows you like two downloads per hour or something ridiculous.

I have a Rapidshare Premium account. o~o.

So many people on WBB use RS, there's not much options.

I await my impending perma ban.

[COLOR="Red"]Don't be so hasty, perhaps you could get an advertising deal with Southperry.

I. Hate. Limits. Speed, lack of pop up ads, easy management, and hopefully a good size limit will be your best friend...ever.[/COLOR]

You should have 4 boxes within any given image uploader:
(*) image ( ) url
[texfield here]
[Submit]

That's the only thing you need in order to become the best image hoster. If there's more, then you fail in making it simple.

For bigger projects within the organisations I'm in, I need to be able to share files with a lot of people. Dropbox's efficient there.

[COLOR="Red"]He wants a whole file sharing site, not just images. A page that had like...two or three columns, one for pictars, one for other files would work great.

Or one for pictars, one for videos, and one for other files.[/COLOR]