Believe it when we tell you DataFileHost is a bad platform for music

With many local upcoming artists releasing new music today, its overwhelming for fans to have an easy access to be able to download that music. There are many platforms which are used to distribute the music either as free download or premium. One’s we are familiar with are: SoundCloud, Reverbnation, Kasimp3, ZippyShare, Hulkshare and Datafilehost.

With a close eye on latest local releases, artists have relied more on Datafilehost.

Then Datafilehost, the platform is only popular for one and only one reason ….easy accessibility. But this is by far a worst and bad platform to the digital space when it comes to accuracy, verification, reliability and support. Artists who are concerned with statistics and accurate numbers will never lay their feet any near the platform because they know they cannot in anyway verify the numbers displayed on their files.

For numerous times we have seen on social media how local artists ‘claim’ that their music has received this number of downloads. If we have to request a detailed report of data on those downloads, it is nowhere to be found and the platform neither can they measure or supply that detailed data.

Meaning of ‘Claim’: state or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof

For starters let’s take a look at facts why Datafilehost is a joke..

– Datafilehost cannot verify number of downloads
– Datafilehost cannot track statistics of where the downloads come from and who downloaded
– Datafilehost cannot track the details of user/s who uploads music, this is even when someone has illegally put up your material.
– The platform does not allow you to search for files/music
– The platform’s terms & conditions are not clearly-defined e.g ‘Datafilehost.com offers no guarantee whatsoever referring to the reliability of the service. Datafilehost.com may not be held responsible for any loss of any kind caused by the temporary unavailability or permanent closure of its website.’
– Unlike SoundCloud , Datafilehost does not have a music player feature to allow users to listen to songs before download and to allow embedding.
– The platform will download a ‘download manager application’ if user doesn’t uncheck radio button before downloading
– The baddest experience for mobile users…if you attempt to download a song from an Android browser you will be directed to a page that forces you to download games/apps. An iPhone users cannot download anything on Datafilehost

Furthermore we decided to contact Datafilehost to clarify 2 issues:

email from beautifularewa.com to data file host
Hi Guys, we would like to enquire if you’re:

1. Able to provide downloads statics if we’ve put up a file for download on your platform
2. Can you confirm if the figures displayed as downloaded times are 100% accurate, if so how are they verified?

Datafilehost reply
Dear Sir or Madam –

The download statistics can be seen when you go to the download link page. Re: the accuracy of the download data, it should be pretty accurate although there are times when people click multiple times for a download. However, for the vast majority of the downloads, it should be quite accurate unless people are consciously trying to cheat the system.

Thank you,
-Datafilehost Team

Their reply is still lame , they didn’t answer what we asked.

Now from those pointers let’s get into local releases that we have monitored and measured that were distributed through this platform. We have seen local artists like....... common i don't need to list your names  you know yourself, rely on the platform to dish out ur music. Of course as mentioned this is a very easily accessible platform and we believe its the reason why they settled. But we are not sure if they were really really concerned about the accuracy and verification of their numbers.

Firstly we took put this to test, we uploaded a file on the platform and only sent it to 4 people to download once. When those 4 people gave us heads up that they’ve downloaded the file, we had a total of 7 number of downloads. 1 was using desktop and 3 were using smartphones, what we then noticed is those downloads on mobile were a cheat as they multiplied by two, meaning 1 mobile downloads reflects 2 downloads. To verify, we hit the download on Blackberry smartphone then refreshed and the total was 9.

Looking at this scenario this proves the cheat on the system as mobile downloads multiply themselves and this kills the accuracy on the numbers from the word go. So you might look at this way if you’re an artist and your total of downloads on a song = 600 , assuming with 300 downloads from desktop users then another 300 from mobile users, what this tells us is 150 downloads are a total cheat , meaning your downloads might realistically be around 400 – 500 in total.

Now onto other scenarios we have measured and monitored:

SCENARIO 1. Zulu Girls (Major League Djz f.t Riky Rick)

Time stamp / No. Downloads:
11:04 AM – 73 381
11:05 AM – 73 529 (148 downloads received in 60 seconds)
11:06 AM – 73 684
11:08 AM – 74 035 (351 downloads received in 60 seconds)
11:09 AM – 74 207
11:31 AM – 77 381
11:42 AM – 78 821
12:03 AM – 81 631 (2810 downloads received in 21 Minutes)

SCENARIO 2. Ashes 2 Ashes (Cassper Nyovest)

Time stamp / No. Downloads:
09:21 AM – 23 616
09:22 AM – 24 049 (433 downloads received in 60 seconds)
09:25 AM – 25 228
09:35 AM – 27 864 (2636 downloads received in 10 Minutes)
09:36 AM – 28 411 (547 downloads received in 60 seconds)
09:37 AM – 28 925
09:39 AM – 29 302
10:00 AM – 35 550
10:05 AM – 39 560 (4010 downloads received in 5 Minutes)
10:30 AM – 43 555 (3995 downloads received in 25 Minutes)

SCENARIO 3. 3 Quarter Pace (Kid X)

Time stamp / No. Downloads:
08:01 PM – 36 260
08:03 PM – 37 357 (1097 downloads received in 3 Minutes)
08:06 PM – 40 363 (3006 downloads received in 3 Minutes)
08:09 PM – 42 346 (1983 downloads received in 3 Minutes)
08:15 PM – 45 014 (2668 downloads received in 6 Minutes)
08:23 PM – 50 417 (5403 downloads received in 8 Minutes)

Now looking at the differences between different time stamps this raises alot of questions in lapses of minutes vs number of traffic vs number of users downloading.

– With twitter being used as the lubricant to push the download links by most artist, it does not add up when calculating artist followers plus first numbers of downloads they receive with the first minute, do note this does not count retweets/sharing from other mass followed users. We have sticked our heads on the platform refreshing and calculating the numbers by minutes lapses and still monitoring analytics of first tweet with the download link.

We are not in anyway attacking , questioning or being negative towards any artist, let that be clear. And we are not saying the number of downloads presented to us as fans are not possible but are questionable.

Now the issue is numbers can be easily cheated using bots (robot or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks over the Internet) unless when using a reliable monitoring tool. With Datafilehost, not only is it impossible to verify the numbers, it’s also impossible to see where your song is being downloaded the most. So to claim you have 400K downloads is a waste of time, who are those 400K people? where are they based? On Facebook/Twitter , with your followers and fans you can see measurable results either, likes, retweets, impressions, reach and shares. So in this case with your 400K downloads how are you going to convert that data to your advantage? Can you use it for anything?

To us we are still curious why more local artist put their music on a platform with no clear communication policy nor guidelines about copyright?

How does the site able to handle so much traffic? To break it to you the site cannot be described as a download/sharing network, but rather an advertising platform. How So? The platform misleads artists and fans to increase their adverts impressions and give them faulty numbers and they capitalize on that. Each an every social network has got costs from employees, servers etc., so how does Datafilehost afford such massive servers to host such a massive traffic of downloads in minutes, hours and all these users around the world? Hope the question is answered.

This article was co-authored with Phil Chard

*The version of Phumakim uploaded to datafilehost was 5.5 Megabytes large . To sustain these numbers Data File Host would have to endure 1.38 gigabytes of bandwidth per second (250 users per second) or a total of 82.5 gigabytes of traffic within a minute. This is an extremely large amount of traffic. Enough to replicate a Denial of Service Attack and overload even the most robust servers. Considering this wasn’t the only file available on Data File Host or the service did not crash, we are faced with another plausible yet highly unlikely scenario.

So from you do you still think local artist should rely on Datafilehost? Should we as fans believe in the numbers artists dish-out to us without no verification? comments are welcomed.