This is great fun, and is driving a burst of creativity and colaboration. This easy availability of great free services is in large part responsible for the hype over Web 2.0 (which somehow refuses to fade quietly into the background like other twee slogans - but is rather perhaps being mainstreamed ;)
Yet there are feet of clay to all this. In the 1990s many of us started our first websites on "free" hosts like Geocities, but soon moved on to paying hosts. In that case it was advertising that caused many of us to move. Other were driven by restrictive policies or lack of space. Something similar could happen to the current crop of great "free" services.
As GOS the "Unofficial news and tips about Google" blog recently noted in a post about Google Page Creator closing:
This year, Google discontinued a lot of services: Browser Sync, Hello, Send to SMS and Send to Phone extension.So, how safe are free services? The provider can drop or change them at any time. Don't rely on them! Use a free online file conversion tool, if you need to convert a few files in a hurry, but not if you convert files regularly. Use a free video sharing tool, to share video freely (Blip.tv seems the best at hosting, but YouTube draws more of an audience) but if reliability matters to you, do make sure you have a backup plan!
Free is fun, but it is also vulnerable. Google is great - as a search engine (though even there one shudders to recognise the power they wield) but not to be trusted with your website!
Labels: internet, video, web 2.0
¶ 6:09 AM
[to Del.icio.us]
I'm sorry, I can't agree with you. First, paid services fail with alarming frequency. Second, Google Pages is being phased out in favor of a more powerful system, Google Sites. Better than browser sync are a number of private services including Foxmarks. Hello is of course superseded by Gtalk. Send to SMS (and its related service, Send to Phone extension) was discontinued at the request of phone providers, but Google provides more powerful services, including better support for mobile phone access and GrandCentral.
So, if you said "you can't count on free services because they are often improved and replaced by better services" I would agree with you.
However, I would keep backups even with paid services.
By 
Iyov, at
August 20, 2008 4:14 PM
