I just read a great article. Doc Searles has concerns with Flickr.
The fundamental concern in this case applies to Twitter, Facebook and many other private siloed networks that contain your data. In this case the two major concerns about Flicker are:
- Your account could be deleted permanently. An example was offered.
- Flickr may not survive. Either replaced by new technology or fail financially
These are valid concerns.
Production of content is one of the harder parts for most people, whether it is a hobby or for profit site. The inability to control the content or the possibility of losing it entirely should be given more attention.
There area couple of steps that I have taken that may be useful to you as well.
- Look into the Backupify.com service to backup your Flickr and many other accounts including Google Docs, Facebook and so on.
- Setup a dedicated WordPress. org blog and pipe all of your content there. I setup a blog that receives every one of my tweets as a post. This gives me the ability to login and search for links, images and tweets well past the short amount of time this content is available through Twitter.
In the comments of Doc’s post the mention is made of Gallery, an open source photo sharing web application. A do it yourself Flickr. This could be another good option for the photographers in the audience. I have worked with other photo galleries. They each have their good and bad points.
The Blog Wranglers are always up for something new. If you want to move your photos from Flickr, but don’t want to get into API programming give us a holler.
Based on just this one article, I can see how our migration services can quickly expand well beyond our current scope. It is an exciting time to be in technology.
How are you taking care of your online data?
How would it effect if you if your Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Docs, GMail, Blogger, Zoho, delicious or FriendFeed data and account were deleted, permanently?