Backup (Always have a 'Plan B')

Ah, yes, that wonderful "lifestream" of online activity, effectively crippled Sunday evening when twitter went ballistic, suspending thousands of accounts. I have always been an advocate of "duplicate services" - for example, I'm on MySpace AND Facebook - and right now, FB has a big edge over MySpace. I use two comment services - Haloscan AND the standard Blogger.com comments. (You can also comment on this weblog via C-Box). I offer interactive contact via MyBlogLog AND via Google Friend Connect.

Beginning today, I'm "tweeting" via twitter AND FriendFeed AND just by using blogger.com's SMS services. With three ways of bouncing my thoughts into the "lifestream" of things, I'll not worry should any one service temporarily go down or decide to "suspend" me!

The ball is in YOUR court. Take a look at the tools you use within the context of your personal online activities. Take the ones that are most valuable and dear to you and find back-ups.

Are you on MySpace? Open a Facebook account. Are you trying to network through Facebook? Open a Linked In account. On twitter? Open a FriendFeed account. Are you blogging? Open up a "back-up" blog via a different blog services provider. Don't "cross-post" - upload original material (you don't need to update as frequently as your "main" blog, but keep the service up, running and open - just in case "something" happens!

Get the idea? Establish your web presence across multiple services. That way YOU will be less likely to panic or break down when one of those services goes down!

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This message is from a Virgin Mobile customer. Enjoy.