Kim Dotcom, founder of Megaupload, has dropped several hints about a new Megaupload launch to the media over recent weeks. The latest information to come out reveals a site called Megabox which seems to be a cloud based service aimed at music lovers and music makers. Two videos were released yesterday but both are rather vague.
The making of Megabox video
The YouTube video description offers the following nuggets of information; “This is what they don't want you to have. Unchaining artists and fans. Megabox is coming soon.”
How soon will it be? Last Friday Kim Dotcom posted to his Twitter account “Quick update on the new Mega: Code 90% done. Servers on the way. Lawyers, Partners & Investors ready. Be patient. It's coming.” In an earlier tweet boasting about the new Megaupload network he said “The Mega API will provide incredible powers. Our API and your Mega tools will change the world.” The USA, a country seeking Mr Dotcom’s extradition from New Zealand, will be excluded from his network “We are building a massive global network. All non-US hosters will be able to connect servers & bandwidth.”
The above video appears to show the developers at Megaupload working on and testing the new Megabox cloud music service. There are quite a few social aspects to the service, which is aimed at music fans and artists alike. As well as sharing and chatting facilities users have access to popularity and ranking statistics on a dashboard. Music artists will get a 90 per cent share of advertising revenue from adverts shown on their music streaming pages.
The video hints that there will be some big name artists on the site when it is launched, various shots in the video show albums and playlists by Radiohead, Coldplay, Muse, Arctic Monkeys, Foo Fighters, David Bowie, Blur, and Rihanna. The new service will even have exclusive artists, shown in the video preview there are already four names displayed in this section; “The Black Keys,” “Rusko,” “Two Fingers” and “Will.i.am.”. Whether the artists we see listed within the Megabox interface really have some kind of agreement with Mr Dotcom or not remains to be seen, they could have just been placed in an internal test site mock-up by the developers. Mr Dotcom would not deny or confirm this information to TorrentFreak.
The even less informative Megabox promo video
“Here is a little Megabox promotion video. Unchaining artists and fans. Megabox is coming soon.”
Will the new Megabox service be followed up with a revival of the Megaupload site? TorrentFreak thinks so and that it will be before the end of 2012.
