Another Reason to Own Your Hosting


Posted: January 5th, 2009 | By: Steve Mullen | Filed under: Social Media News, Social Media Opinion | 1 Comment

Many Podango users are still chasing their tails, trying to figure out what to do to get their shows back up and running.  Podango is one of a number of services hosts podcasting files for users and makes it easier to get that necessary RSS feed up and running.  Many non-technofile podcasters are using services like this to make the task simpler for them.  The problem, however, comes when that service goes out of business or takes an extended holiday.

Podango announced on December 26, 2008 that it would likely cease operations as of December 31.  It’s horrendous timing, as many people aren’t fully tuned in during the holiday season.  The site now says they’re on a “vacation”, but it’s unlikely they’re coming back from their holiday.  Given that the notice was only five days, many users of the service didn’t have time to secure alternate hosting.  Even if they did have time, they certainly didn’t have enough notice to let listeners know of a change.  Podango is now only offering RSS feed redirection.  Blubrry is, by the way, offering to help Podango users who have their files.

This is a great example of why it’s critical to own your hosting and do regular backups of everything.  This is still another reason NOT to host your blog at a free service like Blogger.  You don’t own the URL for your content, which means you can’t easily move it or redirect it.  Using services that do everything for you puts your properties in the hands of someone who doesn’t care about them anywhere near as much as you do.

Promotion Alert: EndGame PR offers podcast consultation through its BizPodz Productions service. If your business or organization wants to launch a podcast or needs help improving an existing one, please contact us!

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Comments for this post

  1. Steve Mullen says:
    January 21, 2009 at 10:04 am

    Here’s another reason. I got an email from Jooce this morning. Jooce is like an online computer desktop. They also offer file storage. Here’s the text of the email:

    We trust that jooce has been serving you well in the past year. However,
    in 2009 we will be undergoing a temporary transition as jooce is in the
    process of being acquired.

    During this transition period jooce will be temporarily suspending its
    file storage service. We strongly suggest that in the next two weeks you
    back up all of your important files stored on jooce.

    All other services such as Instant Messaging (MSN, ICQ, AIM), viewing
    videos and playing music shall be unaffected.

    We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

    This isn’t a big deal for me, as I’ve only tested out Jooce (it’s actually a pretty cool idea, I just never got around to setting it up) and don’t have any files stored there. But, it’s a major inconvenience for people who have a lot of files stored there. I actually recommend using Gmail as a file storage system. Just email the files to yourself there, and then find the email in your archives whenever you need the files.

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