Tag Archives: social networks

Flickr Experiencing Downtime – Back Up Your Flickr Photos With SocialSafe

Discussion, Tips & Tricks, Using SocialSafe, , , , ,

Photo sharing service Flickr is experiencing serious periods of downtime, just days after a releasing a major upgrade to the platform. At this point it’s not a total outage, with some users experiencing no difficulties, however other users have not been able to access the site for hours.

Flickr has acknowledged that there is indeed a problem, and tweeted to that effect:

The Flickr update on Monday overhauled the site’s interface by adding large, high-res photos, along with recently updating the iOS and Android apps. As a result of the iOS update, Flickr has seen a 25 percent increase in uploads from that platform.

It is thought at this point that the outage being experienced by some users is down to the additional load placed on the servers by the influx of high-res images being uploaded in the wake of the new update. Flickr’s 89 million users also had their upload allowance expanded to 1Tb, which may also have added to the problems.

If you are concerned about ever finding yourself unable to access your latest uploads, you can back up your Flickr account using SocialSafe. Simply download the free trial and add your Flickr account as an RSS feed to automatically download your most recent posts to your own machine.

At the moment SocialSafe can only back up your most recent photos via RSS, but we do have plans to add full support for Flickr in due course.

Ways To Back Up A Tumblr Account To Local And Cloud Storage

Discussion, Tips & Tricks, Using SocialSafe, , , , , ,

There has been a lot of discussion this week about Tumblr, following Yahoo’s $1.1bn acquisition of the blogging site, with many users expressing fears that the internet giant would ‘ruin’ Tumblr. This tends to happen whenever a much-loved service gets bought out by a large company – eg Facebook buying Instagram last year.

However, if you’re a Tumblr user who is concerned that anything might happen to your posts and photos then you can keep all your future content secure by backing it up to your own with SocialSafe, using RSS.

If you’re already a SocialSafe user then just skip to the next paragraph to find out how to add your Tumblr account. If you haven’t heard of SocialSafe before, it is a desktop app that allows you to easily download, archive and export your content from a variety of social networks. All the content can be viewed, browsed and searched.  Visit our website to find out more and download the SocialSafe free trial.

To backup a Tumblr account within your SocialSafe journal simply go to the ‘Accounts’ view, click ‘Add Your Blog’ and then enter the URL for your Tumblr page. When you sync your account via RSS (this method) you will get your most recent 20 posts, along with any photos contained within those posts.

Obviously most Tumblr users will have more than 20 posts, which is why we have plans to add full support for Tumblr in the near future. However, we believe something is better than nothing, so we thought it best to point out this alternative method of backing up Tumblr by using RSS.

With SocialSafe you’re obviously backing up to your own machine, but if you’d prefer a cloud based solution, there are other options. One we’d recommend is using WordPress, so follow this link for simple instructions on how to import from Tumblr to WordPress.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via our Facebook page, on Twitter or through our Feedback Forum. You opinions and suggestions mean a lot to us, so please tell us what you think of our product!

Do You Have A ‘Digital Will’ For Your Online Accounts After You Die?

Discussion, Tips & Tricks, Using SocialSafe, , , , ,

It’s not a particularly enjoyable topic to discuss, but at some point we’ve all got to face up to the fact that we’ll eventually die, and someone else will be left to sort through our assets and belongings. This process is coming further complicated by the virtual possessions we are increasingly creating, that often require passwords to access.

Historically, social networks have not been too compliant when it comes to granting next of kin access to the deceased’s accounts. Facebook, for example, will merely offer to “memorialise” a profile upon presentation of a death certificate, but even this hides features such as status updates. When the physical essence of someone ceases to be, what is left of them? The things they have said and done, and the impact they had on those they knew and encountered.

If we don’t take control of this data – our everyday musings, comments on photographs, messages to and from friends and loved ones etc – while we are still alive and breathing, then we run the risk of it all being jettisoned by the host organism (the likes of Twitter, Facebook et al) when they receive notification that one of their one billion users has posted a Check-In from the other side.

SocialSafe is one way in which you can extract this content from your social networks and actually take control of your data. By backing up your data locally, you can leave it to whomever you want. If you use the password protection feature of SocialSafe, simply leave a note of that password in an envelope with your will, and your executor can access this data and do with it what you wish.

Of course there may be parts of your full SocialSafe journal that you don’t want to be seen by anyone, even after you have gone. To make sure the correct content is viewed, you can regularly export the parts you’d like to be passed on and then save them in a location on your computer that you make mention of in your will.

Everyone will have different ideas about what they’d like to happen to their online legacy when they are gone. Ultimately it is a personal decision that means those left behind will either be provided with or deprived of a collection of memories of their time with the departed. The key thing is to take control of this data now so that the decision belongs to you, not the company that hosts your data – along with that of another billion users – on a chilly server farm somewhere near the Arctic Circle.

What Will Happen To Your Social Networks When You Are Gone?

Discussion, Tips & Tricks, Using SocialSafe, , , , , , , , ,

While the digital age has heralded incredible advances in communication abilities, it also leaves us open to the possibility that all the work we put into writing blogs, posting messages on friends’ walls and such like, can all be deleted with one click, never to be seen again. When the time comes to sort through the belongings of a recently deceased friend or loved one, diaries and journals are the sort of things that are kept.

But it’s hard to imagine that the same sense of catharsis will be experienced by a social network – who are essentially landlords of a house full of belongings left for them to deal with by an intestate – when it comes to dealing with the profile of the departed. There is no emotional connection between the host website and the user who posted updates every day for several years, so the likelihood is that they will simply delete it. However the friends of that userwill have an attachment to the photos, the wall posts, the comments from that user on their own updates etc.

And before we spend too much time dwelling on the mortality of man, all of this content could also be lost while someone is still alive. Perhaps digital’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. While information can be shared so quickly and in a virtual environment, it also means that it can disappear without a trace just as quickly.

Thankfully backing up social media accounts and taking control of the content you create just got easier. With SocialSafe you can unite your social networks and create your own copy of the digital stories you tell as you forge your own path through the world of online networking. Safely store all the content and contacts from Facebook, Twitter, Viadeo, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+. For more information about how to start your own offline backup journal visit the SocialSafe website.

Facebook Shares Down As Opera Surges By A Quarter

Discussion, , , ,

There must be some very frustrated people at Facebook right now. Since the social network went public less than two weeks ago, the price of shares has being steadily going down, with yesterday seeing a 9.6% drop in value.

On Tuesday Facebook shares closed at $28.82, which means that they have lost almost a quarter of their value since the IPO. One reason that this has happened is because yesterday was the first day that options on Facebook stock began trading. It appears that most investors are betting Facebook shares will head lower.

[For a brief explanation of how 'options' work, see this article on Investopedia]

As if tumbling stock prices weren’t enough of a headache for Facebook, salt will have been rubbed into the wound by the news of Opera Software’s share value.

After suggestions that Facebook is looking to buy the Norwegian mobile technology firm, shares in Opera surged by a quarter on Tuesday morning. So for Facebook it must be incredibly frustrating that their hinted association with another company makes that company’s market value increase, while Facebook’s own share price continues to drop.

To add to Facebook’s woes, a group of investors has issued a class-action lawsuit against the social network, based on the allegations that Facebook revenues were revised down because of a surge in the number of people using mobile devices for apps and connection to websites. Targeted in the suit are Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg, as well as the banks behind the flotation, including lead underwriter Morgan Stanley.

Facebook Make Changes To Notifications To Allow Easier Granular Filtering

Announcements, Tips & Tricks, , , , ,

New this week is a small short-cut within the Facebook notifications management that allows you to more easily filter out notifications that you really aren’t that bothered with.

The ‘un-follow this post’ option has been around for a while. I’ve found this particularly useful for when I’ve left a comment such as ’Congratulations!’ on a friend’s update about an engagement or pregnancy, as un-following that sort of post stops my phone from beeping for the next three days as all of their other friends catch up on the news and leave a comment.

However in its continual efforts to streamline the way users can garner the sort of content they want from their news feeds and notifications, Facebook has made it easier to manage notifications. Simply hover over an alert in the drop-down box that stems from the globe icon at the top of the page and click the ‘x’ to turn off notifications from that certain app, group, event or post that you commented on.

It used to be the case that you’d have to navigate to the Notifications Settings page and wade through all the different options just to turn off the one thing that was getting on your nerves. Now you can just silence the offending items as and when they appear as notifications. Another change to the actual drop-down notifications panel now allows you to scroll down and go further back through your alerts instead of having to click ‘see more’.

These changes haven’t hit all accounts yet, but according to TechCrunch they should be rolled out within 24 hours or so, with the exception of app alert controls, which are still in testing.

With More Mobile Users Will Facebook Ad Revenue Survive Post-IPO?

Discussion, , , , , ,

There’s been an awful lot of talk recently about the Facebook IPO and what the future will hold for Mark Zuckerberg’s social creation. While many are sure that the behemoth network will continue to grow and share prices will soar, there are also those who are beginning to see cracks appear that might well lead to some serious problems.

It’s been argued that there is too much tinkering with the original layout and functionality that will cause some users to pack up and leave. The quiet grunts of discontent when Facebook Timelines first reared its head are turning into louder protests with each poll on the issue, and according to some research, 88% of users are concerned about the privacy implications of all the data that Timeline aggregates.

Ad revenues are the lifeblood of Facebook, yet not all companies are that enamoured with the ROI that Facebook has given them. General Motors – one of the three biggest advertisers in the US – is pulling all of its Facebook ads due to lack of effectiveness. But why is this happening?

People primarily use Facebook to ‘hang out’ and interact with friends. You just don’t want to be bombarded with adverts when you’re commenting on a photo or replying to a message, the same way that you don’t want someone to come up to you and reel off a sales pitch while you’ve out for coffee with a friend. Services such as Google’s AdSense have proven to be more affective as it actually targets people who are looking to buy – or at least research – a product.

Another contributing factor to the apparent decline of Facebook’s average revenue per user is the increased access from mobile devices. There simply aren’t any adverts on the mobile apps, so that’s a whole chunk of the target market taken out right there. Facebook even admitted as much during its S-1 filing, by saying that more people were using the mobile apps than originally thought, and revenue was going down.

Please be clear - I don’t see this as the death knell for Facebook – it’s still head and shoulders above the competition in terms of user base and reach. There simply isn’t another service out there that can connect you with as many people and on as many levels as Facebook does. However, everyone thought MySpace was going to rule the world, and then Facebook came along.

So the questions are these… What must Facebook do in order to keep its revenues climbing, and what would need to come along to cause a wholesale exodus from the world’s largest social network?

Use SocialSafe To Unite Your Social Networks

Discussion, Tips & Tricks, Using SocialSafe, , , , , , , , , , ,

These days more and more of our time is spent online, and an increasing amount of our output is held in the cloud, with social networks accounting for a large proportion of this content.

At times it can be hard to keep track of your various activities, especially when you are connected with an individual on more than one social network. Trying to remember when and indeed where you spoke with someone or received a message or link can be an arduous task.

SocialSafe allows you to unite your social networks, creating a searchable offline journal populated by your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and Viadeo accounts. You can select which aspects of each service that you’d like to backup from the cloud, and aggregate all of them into one place that you can browse or search.

For example if you are someone who does a lot of communicating through Twitter, you can search your SocialSafe journal to find all mentions, DMs and tweets to or from a certain person. But say you are connected with someone on Facebook and LinkedIn as well as Twitter, you can simply incorporate those networks into your search parameters within SocialSafe to see all interactions that have previously occurred with that person.

If you were trying to find a particular tweet or Facebook timeline post but you can’t remember who said it or the exact date, it’s as easy as going to the Calendar view in the app and setting a range of dates to then browse all of your activities across your networks to find what you are looking for.

So if you want to unite your social networks, start using SocialSafe now to backup your Facebook Timeline, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram and Viadeo accounts to create a beautiful, searchable, digital journal. You can find out more information about SocialSafe and download the free version on our website.

LinkedIn Now Has iPad App – Backup Your LinkedIn Contacts With SocialSafe

Announcements, Discussion, Tips & Tricks, Using SocialSafe, , , , , , ,

Yesterday saw the release of the LinkedIn iPad app, as well as updated and revamped versions of its existing iPhone and Android apps. As of February 2012, the service had in excess of 150m users across the world. Now that the experience is available in iPad format, it stands to reason that there may be another surge in sign-ups.

If you want details of what the LinkedIn iPad app has to offer, then I’ll just direct you to Mashable instead of reproducing what they’ve written: LinkedIn Launches iPad App, Takes New Direction.

As soon as a user populated service is available (or in this case,more readilyavailable) in mobile format it is a fair assumption that the rate of content creation will increase. Anyone who is a regular reader of this blog will probably have worked out where I’m going with this… Who looks after this data you create and what happens if it disappears?

While there is an increasing number of business related accounts on Facebook and Twitter (which can all be backed up with SocialSafe), LinkedIn remains the exclusively business orientated social network. If you were to temporarily lose access or worse still suffer permanent deletion of your business contacts then this can have dire consequences.

Enterprise and Pro users of SocialSafe have the ability to backup LinkedIn contacts, updates and profile (we’re working on backing up groups in SocialSafe v6.5) to their own PC or Mac. This video shows just how simple it is to backup a LinkedIn profile and what you can actually do with you data once it is downloaded:

If you’d like to backup your LinkedIn profile then visit the SocialSafe website to start your offline digital journal today. Be sure to look at the Features section to see what else you can backup from your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Viadeo accounts.