As we enter a new recession, depression or obsession (which ever term you prefer to use), it is inevitable that there will be numerous casualties – companies and organizations that are ill prepared to face the new environment in which we have already been living in but have only awoken to in light of the turmoil in the financial sector. These companies will not be able to weather the storm, will fold, and with them there will be those that will too suffer the consequences. So what’s new?
Well have you ever thought about the investment you make daily in publishing your assets (photos, video, opinions, comments etc) on third party applications. You then rely on incoming links to boost your authority online – all result in the building of your personal brand, your reputation.
So have you ever wondered what would happen if your third party provider closed? What would your 
signatures point to? How many links and embedded assets would you lose? Would you be left with much information online? You may smirk at the thought of mediatemple (hosting) or YouTube or delicious or facebook or flickr going under. How many were left dumbfounded with the financial crisis and the most unlikely of victims? Oh yes…
It shouldn’t be a far cry from reality if you recognize that most of the Web 2.0 era is based on a business model that survives on two factors: funding from investment firms and advertising, from… well advertisers. Both have been severally hit by the obdepression. So how sure are you now that everything will be alright on the night?
Take steps to safeguard your assets.
- Ensure that you have backups of all information you place online;
- Host as much as possible on your own site, using platforms such as WordPress, running backups weekly;
- Back up your database and your assets;
- Minimize embedding of video / audio – at least keep a copy (external storage is cheap now);
- Export weekly your contacts from LinkedIn and all other platforms that allow you to do so.
Any more ideas… feel free to comment…
By the way, some third party providers change strategies which was the case with VideoEgg, but don’t expect all companies to react in the same professional way that VideoEgg did. I was hosting videos with them; after all they were behind most social networks including Hi5, Bebo etc. They decided to concentrate on their advertising platform and so communicated to all their members that they would cease to stream members’ videos.
The difference is that they gave more than ample warning, assisted in the process of retrieving videos and sent numerous reminders ensuring that all their members had more than enough time to deal with this change. Don’t expect folding third-party companies to be so benevolent. You may find yourself in the “now you see me now you don’t” scenario and that is bound to cause some heart ache if you aren’t prepared.
