Should you back up your online accounts?

by Russell Dunkin on November 2, 2009

Server racksI recently signed up for a service to backup all of my various online accounts. Because I work for an SEC Registered Investment Advisor firm, any information that is considered marketing or advertising must be archived in a compliance file.  While the majority of my posts here, on Twitter, and on Facebook, are personal in nature, there are times when I post a link or make a comment that could be considered advertising.

While Wordpress has a variety of options for backing up your blog, ranging from simply exporting it, to a more elaborate plugin, Twitter, Facebook, and other “social networking” sites do not offer much help.  Posts on Facebook seem to disappear after a month, and Twitter “streams” by quickly.  I could use an RSS feed for tweets, and a different solution here, but instead I wanted to find one option to backup all of my sites.

I first read about Backupify when it was called Lifestream backup on Bill Winterberg’s blog FP PAD.  After testing the free version for a couple weeks, I signed up for their Premium (10 gb) plan about a month ago.  I know have a daily backup of Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Google Docs, and this site.  All this for $39 a year (there is a $29 plan for $29, and a $109 50 gb plan).

While I have been very pleased with the service thus far, as it does exactly what I need, I have been most impressed by the company’s customer service.  This past week I decided I wanted the service to backup everything on my Facebook account except pictures. Because I had already elected to backup everything, I was unable to stop backing up pictures, and delete them from my account.

This clearly isn’t a deal breaker, but something I was hoping to do.  About an hour after leaving a voicemail on their toll-free number, I received a call back from the founder of the company, Rob May.

I figured it was a small company, but  I was still surprised and pleased to hear from the founder!

He reviewed my request, and explained that was an option they had planned on adding, but hadn’t had a request to do so.  Based on my call, they would take care of it the following week!  While I’m sure it won’t take a lot of programing to add this feature, I was very pleased to see a company so responsive to its clients!

Recession or not, it’s service like this that builds great companies, and very loyal customers!  Have you had a similar positive experience with a company?  I’d love to hear about it here.

photo by Docklandsboy

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