Blogging Platform Posterous To Shut Down April 30 94
New submitter Mike Allton writes with the announcement from Posterous that the blogging platform will close at the end of April, after being acquired last year by Twitter. "It's been suggested that people should use platforms like Posterous or Google+ for their blog, and I think this is a perfect example of why that's a bad idea. When you use someone else's platform, you don't own your content and you don't have control over the platform. Do you have a Posterous account? What will you do with all your posts and content?"
Who? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevere heard of them.
Guess nothing of value will be lost.
Did you *read* TFA? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article gives specific instructions how to save all your blog content. In some cases, move it to another host. But you must do it before they shutdown. So the problem is ...??
Content (Score:2, Insightful)
While I haven't read the Posterous TOS i doubt they "own" people's content... however, the issue I think that Mike was trying to highlight is while you own your content you might not be able to migrate it and/or loss access to it..
Re:Did you *read* TFA? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure of why Google+ is mentioned, especially as it's one of the few that will allow you to easily extract all your data. Regardless, everyone should know that you're at the mercy of the whims of those that provide 'free' services. You should always know what the real 'cost' is, and have an escape plan you can use if required.
Re:Did you *read* TFA? (Score:4, Insightful)
Google+ was mentioned to gather clicks and cause discussion why Google+ is so terrible.
Hell... the most of the WWW is terrible since corporations conquered it and we moved away from simple and good looking HTML sites to huge advertising competition and who designs most fancy animated page.
Some days I think we would have been much better in times when email didn't have HTML coding possibilities and discussion happened in BBS/NNTP way instead HTML forums with huge banners, "billion of links" and signatures what people abuse etc. (we can always make things cleaner and good looking but HTML was way too easy slippery sloap what was offered to so called "designers" who could make any element of picture as link).
Broader Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
When you use someone else's platform, you don't own your content and you don't have control over the platform.
This is true. On the other hand, you are also shifting the maintenance burden to someone else. Keeping the software up to date w.r.t. features, bug fixes, or at least security fixes. Fighting spam. Keeping the platform that the software runs on (operating system, hardware) usable. Making sure backups are kept up to date and regularly tested.
It's a trade-off, and there are good reasons for wanting to be in control and good reasons for wanting others to do the work.
I think the real solution to the control issue, in many cases, is to make sure it is easy to get the data out and use it, and then regularly get a copy of the data you care about and store it somewhere. Exactly like making a backup, which you should be doing no matter who hosts the data, you or someone else. If you do this, you are protected against data loss and unwanted changes.
If you make sure you always have usable backups of your data, the only thing you still need to worry about is other people using that data. To some extent, that is something you need to worry about no matter who hosts the data, but, of course, the realistic threats are somewhat different for, say, hosting the data only on computers only you have an account on vs. hosting the data on a computer that is maintained by someone else. For me, personally, I have no issue having my website on someone else's computer, but I do have an issue with this for email.
Re:Friendica (Score:5, Insightful)
No, own your own WEBSITE. That's the only way to be sure. The downside isn't cost, you can get hosting for $15 per year. The downside is nobody will read it -- but they don't anyway.
Me, I just use slashdot. [slashdot.org] It's good enough for my purposes.
Re:Content (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not clear how you would lose your data. You can download everything into a zip file. Then you can either parse the stuff yourself or use the import facility at Wordpress or Squarespace. It is probably good advice to make sure you have another copy of everything you depend on the cloud for, but this shutdown is not a good example of what can go wrong.
Re:Who? (Score:2, Insightful)