Backupify recommends SocialSafe (6 month free licence offer)

Announcements, , , , , , , , ,

Backupify is recommending SocialSafe to its customers after announcing that they are phasing out their consumer services for social media backup.

We’re super happy to be helping Backupify and are offering a special welcome bonus for all Backupify customers. Grab a special copy of SocialSafe today and get 6 months of social media backup absolutely free!

SocialSafe enables you to back up your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and other social network accounts straight to your computer.

You can also use SocialSafe’s RSS back up option to download your latest photos on Flickr and latest posts from WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr and other blogging platforms.

SocialSafe isn’t just about backing up your social media though. Our mission is to help you maintain and enjoy the whole story of you. You can view all your photos from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and your blogs, complete with comments and likes. You can travel back through your online timeline and relive those special moments. You can even get interesting insights on your content and on your friends’ and fans’ interactions with you. And that’s just for starters!

A quick note on privacy as it’s very dear to our hearts. Everything is stored on your computer and as such is never seen or accessed by us. We believe you should own and control your online social life and having your own personal copy is the best way to achieve that.

Get in touch or leave a comment below if you have any questions.

To get your free 6 month licence you need to download SocialSafe from here.

TweetBackup Recommends SocialSafe as Alternative Backup Service – 6 Month Free Trial For Users

Announcements, Tips & Tricks, Using SocialSafe

Today it was announced that TweetBackup is discontinuing its Twitter backup service. Customers are being notified that the service will be winding down operations by the end of June. However, TweetBackup is recommending SocialSafe as an alternative way to back up tweets, mentions, followers and more.

An answer in the TweetBackup FAQ section explains why they’re closing down, and a statement on their main site outlined the time frame for the closure:

“It’s been a great 5 years, and we are proud to have served the needs of so many people needing to back up their Twitter accounts. Unfortunately, starting May 15, 2013 TweetBackup will no longer accept any new sign ups.

Existing TweetBackup users… will still be able to sign in to the system, and backups will still occur, for 30 more days – until June 28, 2013. If you would like to retrieve your data from TweetBackup, please remember to download it before June 28, 2013. You can read more about the TweetBackup shutdown here.”

We were approached by TweetBackup last week with the sole objective of making the transition as smooth as possible for their users, and we’re pleased to announce that we are offering a special 6 month extended free trial of SocialSafe for TweetBackup users.

For those of you who aren’t aware of what SocialSafe offers, here’s what to expect in terms of Twitter support:

  • Tweets
  • Mentions
  • DMs
  • Bio Information
  • Favourites
  • Followers/Following (automatic in-app filtering shows new/lost/mutual/one-way followers and following)

download tweets

Everything that you back up with SocialSafe is stored on your own PC/Mac, and presented to you in a journal where you can view, search and export your content. In terms of privacy, SocialSafe never sees nor stores any of the content you back up as it is all saved to your own machine. If you’re a fan of cloud storage then you can still export your data from SocialSafe and keep it wherever you want – we just thought it best to let individual users make that decision for themselves.

So to start using SocialSafe today, download the special 6 month free trial for TweetBackup users and take control of your Twitter content.

For more information about SocialSafe and the other networks it supports, please visit our main site, follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, and hang-out with us on Google+.

SocialSafe v6.5.1 released – Improved Help, First Usage & Sync Assistance, Language Support + more

Announcements, Tips & Tricks, Using SocialSafe

Yesterday we released SocialSafe v6.5.1 into the wild, so if you haven’t updated yet just open the app and you should be prompted to do so.

So what’s new in this version? Well our last release (SocialSafe v6.5) saw the inclusion of a major new feature – Insights – so this time we’re just taking care of a few bits and pieces that needed some attention, as well as laying the groundwork for more significant improvements later on down the line.

You won’t actually notice a lot of the work if you are already a SocialSafe user, as we’ve enhanced the first use network selection and automatic sync assistance that only occurs when you use the app for the first time.

SocialSafe v6.5.1

We’ve also completed the preparatory work for multi-lingual support, so you can expect French as an option within SocialSafe once we roll out the first Language Pack in the next few weeks. As always, we try to be as user-lead as is feasible in terms of the direction we take with our development, so if there is a language you’d like to see in SocialSafe then please let us know. Likewise, if you are multi-lingual and would like to help us with the translations then please do get in touch.

As is the norm with our releases, we’ve also managed to fix a number bugs and make some subtle UI improvements. In addition to this we’ve improved the Help file with a contextual menu to help uses get the most out of SocialSafe.

We hope you enjoy this latest release and as always, if you have any questions or suggestions then please get in touch on Facebook, find us on Twitter or on our Feedback forum.

Use Facebook Messenger More Than Texting? Here’s How To Back Up All Your Facebook Messages

Tips & Tricks, Using SocialSafe

[tl:dr - To download your Facebook Messages right now then start using SocialSafe for free]

Today I came across a couple of articles that reinforced a point that has been becoming increasingly apparent lately – people are sending text messages less and less frequently, instead opting to use 3G or WiFi based messages on services such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

There are several reasons why someone may do it, each as valid as the other. For me, I have a brother who lives in Singapore and we use WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to send messages and chat in real-time for free. Some people live in areas of intermittent phone signal, but if they are connected to a WiFi network they can carry on sending messages to individuals and groups of friends, indiscriminate of the device owned by the other people (eg Apple users being able to use WiFi to send iMessages). And with Facebook sprucing up the chat interface and becoming more prominent on mobile phones – think Facebook Home and Chat Heads – it’s becoming more common to receive a Facebook message than a text for a lot of people.

This brings us to the main point. People were thrilled when Apple brought out the iCloud which allows users to automatically sync their contacts, text messages and other content to a separate backup drive just in case their iPhones were stolen, lost, or the data accidentally deleted. However, when you begin to drift away from using a communication medium that is being backed up automatically (text messages), how many of you think about keeping copies of the new messages you are sending and receiving?

If you communicate via Facebook a little or a lot, you might well be looking for a way to download all your Facebook messages. With SocialSafe, backing up your messages is quick and easy, and you’ll also be able to browse and search through your entire Facebook message history offline. Simply download the free trial and start backing up your online social life today.

After all, if your Facebook account were to bite the dust overnight (and believe us, it can happen), there isn’t anything the iCloud will be able to do to retrieve your chats with friends. Don’t take a chance with your online memories – back them up once, relive them forever.

Grab The Popcorn, It’s Cineworld vs The Awkward Customer On Twitter…

Discussion, Fun

Social media is rapidly becoming the medium of choice for companies to communicate messages to their customers, as well as for individuals to get the attention of the big brands. The speed at which content can be spread on social networks also allows other people to easily lend their support to the little man, with many problems gaining widespread media attention due to the virality of the story on social networks. Just this week, the tale of a deceased man being charged a late payment fee by Virgin Media (despite the fact the account holder’s bank informing them that he had passed) was shared over 53,000 times after the man’s son-in-law posted a picture of the bill – which included the line “D.D Denied-Payer Deceased” as the reason for the fine – to Facebook.

cineworld twitter fightHowever, people don’t always come out in support of the complainant, and it seems the saying “the customer is always right” is starting to ring less and less true. For this example we turn to a conversation that unfolded on Twitter a few days ago between Cineworld – a UK cinema chain – and a customer who thought that their prices were too high. Despite repeatedly telling the man that their prices were some of the most competitive around and pointing him in the direction of a number of special offers, he refused to give up, and – as many other people chipping in pointed out – failed to grasp the fact that we live in a free market economy, and film studios need to some home make back the millions they invest in producing high quality movies.

What was refreshing to see was that instead of trying to pander to the man’s every whim and not offend him, the Cineworld employee stuck to their guns and didn’t stand for the customer’s illogical arguments and abject refusal to acknowledge his earlier erroneous accusations. Common consensus is that it was one helluva gutsy move from the Cineworld employee to respond to the awkward customer in the way they did, but on balance ‘the internet’ seems to think that Cineworld came out on top.

If you’ve got a few minutes to check this out for yourselves, the stream of tweets between Cineworld and the angry customer is well worth the read. Who do you think came off best here?

This raises and interesting Should the people responsible monitoring company social media channels have to put up with angry customers in a different way to how they would deal with an irritating person in their personal life? We’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

Financial Markets Affected By Rogue 140 Character Update – Associated Press Twitter Hack

Discussion

A Twitter account being hacked is now an unfortunately ‘normal’ occurrence, at least in so far as that when we hear of it we are no longer as shocked or surprised as we were say a year or two ago. However, as yesterday’s hacking of the Associated Press‘s Twitter account showed, just a single 140 character update can have a significant effect almost instantaneously.

Before we discuss this story it’s worth quickly pointing out that Twitter is currently beefing up its security with the implementation of two-factor authentication in an effort to combat would-be hackers.

So yesterday the AP’s Twitter account was hacked, and the following message was posted, purportedly telling of an attack on the White House:

AP Twitter Hack

Unsurprisingly the original tweet was deleted (so we’ve had to borrow this screen-grab from the Mashable article) as soon as the breach became apparent, and the account was suspended before another AP account clarified the siutation. However, the impact of the tweet was being felt by the financial markets almost immediately. The Standard & Poors 500 Index dropped sharply by around one percent before bouncing back, with the trough representing a temporary dip in value of $136 billion.

If someone had been privy to the knowledge that such a tweet was to be sent and at what time, there could have been significant gains to be made by selling high (before the tweet) and buying low after the price dropped in reaction to the report from a ‘trustworthy’ source that the White House had been attacked and the President injured. Of course there could have been no guarantee that the markets would react in the way that they did.

The Syrian Electronic Army – a group claiming to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – has taken responsibility for the attack, as well as saying that it is behind other recent attacks on the Twitter feeds of Agence France Presse news agency, Sky News Arabia, al-Jazeera mobile and CBS News.

Sheryl Sandberg Admits That Facebook Privacy Settings Can Be Hard To Understand

Discussion

Everywhere you go in the world, you will find that people’s understanding and tolerance of things will vary hugely. It might be social customs such as how much clothing people need wear, whether or not you leave food on a plate, or how you address a member of the opposite sex. The same principle can be applied to what happens online, and what the limits are on a person’s privacy expectations.

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that certain countries react with more volatility than others when changes are made to Facebook’s privacy settings. And now, following the release of her book Lean In, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has admitted that there is a significant difference in the levels of acceptance between America and other countries in Europe, she insists that Facebook does care as much about privacy as anyone:

“I believe there is a perception and fear that because we are American, we don’t take privacy as seriously as Europeans do. We feel this most acutely in Germany… If there is a single American who cares as much about privacy — just one — as someone in Germany, then we have to understand it.”

Despite her suggestion that a lot of the fear associated with changes to Facebook’s privacy settings stems from the fact that the technology is still relatively new, it is nice to finally have an acknowledgement from Sandberg that these changes are often too complicated and confusing for the users:

“Our biggest mistake over the years was not one of violating privacy, but was one of complexity. There is this tension in privacy between control and ease of use. You can give people a lot of control and it is very complicated, or you can give people less control and it is easier to use. Facebook has historically given people tons of control, but then it was all on privacy pages with 40 things, and it was hard to understand.”

What are your thoughts on Facebook’s privacy settings? Are they too complicated to allow for meaningful sharing, forcing you into restricting what you share too harshly through fear that something might slip through the net? Or do people need to be more educated in their online sharing habits?

New Twitter #Music App Sees Recommendations Based On Tweets And Followers

Discussion, Fun, Tips & Tricks

This week Twitter expanded its horizons further by launching its own music app, appropriately named Twitter #Music. Dovetailing with other music services such as iTunes, Spotify and Rdio, Twitter #Music is more of a discovery app that serves its users with small chunks of content.

As already the case with Twitter’s trending topics, #Music is intended to provide users with a snapshot of what is hot right now, by measuring social activity around artist and songs. As Stephen Philips explained on the Twitter blog:

“It uses Twitter activity, including tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists. It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and centre: go to their profiles to see who they follow and listen to songs by those artists.”

There are four ways to discover music on Twitter #Music:

  • Popular – new music trending on Twitter.
  • Emerging – a selection of emerging artists, presumably curated by Twitter.
  • Suggested – based on the artists you follow, Twitter makes recommendation of other artists you might like.
  • #NowPlaying – this is made up of the songs tweeted by people you follow, not necessarily what they’re listening to.

For the last two you’ll need to be logged in to Twitter to discover music in those ways. Because Twitter #Music is standalone, you don’t need to be logged in to Twitter or another music service to start finding tunes. However, until you login you’ll be restricted to 30-second clips of the songs provided by iTunes, so to hear full tracks you’ll need to sign in with a Spotify account or something similar.

Twitter #Music

At present Twitter #Music is available as a web app and on iOS . There isn’t really anything to shout about in terms of search functionality, but the early feedback seems to imply that the user experience is smooth and slick, with clearly a lot of thought from the designers as to how the app would respond as users interact with it.

Will Twitter #Music radically change the way we share and discover music, or do the likes of GrooveShark, SoundCloud, Spotify et al already have this all sewn up? Tell us your thoughts on this by leaving a comment below.

What Happens To My SocialSafe Content If I Delete The Online Originals?

Tips & Tricks, Using SocialSafe

We received a support query last night from one of our users and since their question has been asked quite frequently by other people, we thought it would be useful to post a short blog entry explaining this topic.

Here is an extract from their query:

“I see in the help section that if I delete data online, it is still stored in my hard drive.  Would it still be available after the next sync? or would my hard drive data also be deleted when syncing?”

In short – yes, absolutely, 100%.

This particular user was wanting to trim back their online presence while still keeping a copy of all their content. The good news for them – and many others who ask us the same question – is that yes, everything you back up with SocialSafe will still be stored on your own hard drive, even if the originals on the networks are deleted. If you then go to sync with your online accounts, SocialSafe won’t delete anything from your hard drive if the source data is no longer available online.

However, you will find that friends, contacts, followers etc will move to the another part of your SocialSafe journal if you disconnect with them. For example, anyone you decided to de-friend on Facebook or stop following on Twitter will subsequently appear in the ‘Lost Friends’ or ‘No Longer Following’ sections once SocialSafe syncs your account and realises that you are no longer connected.

So to come back to the original question, whenever back up your data, it is safely stored on your own PC or Mac forever. This is really the whole reason why we created SocialSafe in the first place – as a backup for your photos if anything happened to your Facebook account. Obviously we’ve come a very long way since then, as SocialSafe now boasts extensive support for a comprehensive range of content from a variety of networks including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and more.

To bring together all the various parts of your online story safely in one place, download SocialSafe now.