I’ve seen a lot of people freaking out about the Google+ data leak and even more so about it’s pending shut down. In response many are looking at where they’re planning on going next that will give them the functionality they’re looking for. Sadly, however, almost every one of them is contemplating moving to identical types of platforms which are either incredibly similar to or even worse than Google+ given the criterion by which they are considering. They’re simply looking for and prioritizing the wrong types of functionality.
Quit repeating the mistakes of the past, learn from them, and do something different this time around or I guarantee history will be repeating itself.
While there are a handful of reasonable options (and by this I DO NOT mean Mastodon, Diaspora, Pluspora, MeWe, Vero, Twitter, Facebook, or Solid, etc.) I’d recommend looking at some of the ideas and solutions within the IndieWeb movement. For the less technical minded I highly recommend taking a look at a self-hosted WordPress option or micro.blog.
I’m happy to help people out with making the jump when they’re ready or if they need help.
Findings and actions from Project Strobe—a root-and-branch review of third-party developer access to Google account and Android device data and of our philosophy around apps’ data access.
Google is about to have its Cambridge Analytica moment. A security bug allowed third-party developers to access Google+ user profile data since 2015 until Google discovered and patched it in March, but decided not to inform the world. When a user gave permission to an app to access their public pro…
It is with deep regret that we announce that we will stop providing our beloved service, Path.
We started Path in 2010 as a small team of passionate and experienced designers and engineers.
Over the years we have tried to lay out our mission: through technology and design we aim to be a source of happiness, meaning, and connection to our users.
Along our journey we have laughed and cried with you, and learned valuable lessons. And it is now inevitable to wind down the service to prioritize our work to serve you with better products and services.
It has been a long journey and we sincerely thank each one of you for your years of love and support for Path.
The specific shutdown schedule is as below:
- 9.17.2018 : Notice on Path service discontinuation
- 10.1.2018: Unable to download/update the app in iTunes and Google Play
- 10.18.2018: Termination of the Service (Unable to access to Path)
- 11.15.2018: Path related customer service will be closed
The Path service and Terms of Use governing your use of Path will terminate on [10.18.2018].
Prior to [10.18.2018], you can restore retrieve a copy of your data (i.e. your images, text, videos) by following below steps:
1. Visit https://path.com/settings/backups
2. Log in with your Path account
3. Click the button and enter email address that you wish to receive the backup files
OR
1. Open your Path app and go to Setting
2. Click the button and enter your email address that you would like to receive the backup files.
*Please make sure that your Path app is the latest ver.
Please note that you will not be able to access the backup service site after [10.18.2018]. We may not retain copies of any of your data on and from that date. Accordingly, you are encouraged to download and keep copies of your data if you wish to have access from [10.18.2018].
The last time I’d used (read syndicated to via POSSE) Path was about 2 years ago on June 7, 2016. Prior to that, most of my posting to it was by automatic syndication from my website, so I’m glad to see that a large portion of my personal data on the service is already backed up on my own personal website! Hooray!
I do notice that because part of the service’s cachet was either private or limited audience posts, that a lot of my early posting (from 11/29/10 to around December 2014) included photographs that I posted directly to Path and didn’t share very widely. As a result, a lot of my early posting wasn’t done from my own website, so I’m requesting a downloadable backup of all my data before the service goes under. If you used the service, I hope you’re requesting your download as well.
It’s kind of sad that amidst the toxicity of Twitter which gamifies following that a service that limited following and focused on the small and personal is collapsing.
Our incredible journey spanned 7 years and 209 precious moments. Somehow it was still listed as “Beta”?!
Thanks for all the laughs and fun Path, and thanks for giving at least some warning before shutting down all your servers with all of that user data.
Mostly I’m glad that I’m able to post most of my content to my own site now without the reliance on third party social networks to save and maintain my data. If you’re worried about how social services use and abuse your data or may disappear with it altogether–Path will not be the last–and want more control over it, stop by IndieWeb.org to see how you can take back your online identity and data. I and many others are always happy to help those who are interested.
Pearl-clutching twitter users: but what if the hobbyist sysadmin gives up on my mastodon instance?
Me: have you met venture funded social sites? https://t.co/RK483sl1yX
7/13/2018 In 2003, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society (now the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society) began an unusual experiment: we launched a blogging platform. That seems q…
A salute to just 35 once vibrant free web sites that have bit the dust. Read their names (below) the next time someone raves about some site that will host your content for free. I'm prepping to do an updated version in 2018- please add dead webs to include in the comments.
An awesome little concept to highlight corporate silo site-deaths.
A salute to just 35 once vibrant free web sites that have bit the dust. Read their names (below) the next time someone raves about some site that will host your content for free.
It’s the end of an era for Yahoo Messenger, one of the first instant messaging apps on the market that introd. Today, Oath (which also owns TechCrunch) announced that it would be winding down the service on July 17 as it continues to experiment and consider how and if it can have a relevant p…
Interesting, a silo death ostensibly used to do PR for a new app on the same broad platform.
LogMeIn, parent company of LastPass, announced today that it will shut down the cross-browser bookmark synchronization service Xmarks on May 1, 2018.
I’d heard rumors of this floating around a while back, but never remember having seen an email about my account. Probably got caught in a spam filter somewhere. At least I’ve got all my bookmarks backed up, most of them on my own website.
What is your favorite site that’s disappeared? What’s your favorite 404 page? What site do you think will disappear before we celebrate 404 again next April 04?
Since the old Lanyrd site was back up over the weekend, I went in and saved all of the old data I wanted from it before it decided to shut down again (there is no news on when this may happen). Sadly there is no direct export, but I was able to save pages individually and/or save them to the Internet Archive.
One thing we very much believe in is that you should own your own data. As such, we didn’t want to just suck your data into Notist and leave it at that. Instead, we’ve built a tool that gives you access to the content as HTML and JSON, ready for you to take away today.
Lanyrd is currently up, let us grab your data for import into Notist! https://t.co/QdYsSKIF1L
I hadn’t been paying attention and Lanyrd, yet another social site I used to use, has apparently gone under. Wish I’d had some notice to extract my data out of the service before it raged into the dying of the light.
I ought to start a “dead pool” for making odds on the next social media sites to disappear.
How many more times do people have to get stiffed by a free web service that just bites the dust and leaves you bubkas? What follows is a monster post. You will find me ranting ar companies like St…
Kevin Marks