A Blogging Strategy?

When Google UnFriended me by disabling my account, the effect on my blog was that I lost about a years worth of pictures that were stored on Picasa… but I didn’t lose my blog because it was set up under a different account.  So I didn’t lose any posts or comments, just the pictures on those posts. This was not a result of any smart planning on my part, I just wanted a gmail account more closely aligned with my blog. 

But maybe this should be incorporated into a blogging strategy, and a way to spread out the risk, and impact, of being UnFriended.

The Strategy:

Set up your blog under one Google account but do not post to your blog using that account.  Think of this account as your “good behaviour” one, and try to use it wisely so they have no reason to UnFriend you.

Set up other accounts for the purposes of posting to your blog and setting up backup blogs.  Interchange the use of these accounts to post to your blog.

The critical part of this strategy is to give all your accounts full Admin Rights to all of your blogs.  It is a 3-Step process;

Step 1 – Sign into your Dashboard with the account you set the blog up through, and click the Settings link.  Through the Permissions tab, click “Add Authors” and invite your other accounts to write to your blog.  This will result in an email being sent to the Invited accounts.

Step 2 – Sign into gmail for the invited accounts and open the email sent and accept the invitation by clicking the long link in the email.

Step 3 – Sign back into the Dashboard with the account used to set up the blog and go back to the Permissions page.  Click “Grant Admin Privileges” for the invited accounts.  Now each account has the same privileges for control of your blog.

Summary Set-Up:

- Main Blog set up under Account1, full Admin Rights given to Account2 and Account3.  Account2 and Account3 are used to post to Main Blog.
- Backup Blog set up under Account2 as a Private blog, full Admin Rights given to Account1 and Account3.
- A second back-up blog could be set up under Account3.

The benefit is that if any account is UnFriended or if just your blog is closed, you have full access and backup through your other accounts. 

I’m sure there are ways to fine-tune this strategy… anyone?

A Glimmer of Hope

I received an email from Google Thursday, and he said that he was looking into my UnFriended status!  I am trying not to get too excited, and this doesn’t mean we will become Friends again, but after being so bummed out for the last 10 days, this comes as a ray of hope.

Google’s email came as a result of some urging from people on his Help Forum, and I really have them to thank.  Jeff from Google Closes Gay Blogs urged me last week to post something in the forum, and to not give up.  He has also monitored my post thread and provided lots of moral support.  A couple of days ago, Jeff added a message to my thread urging some of the senior people there to at least respond so I am not just left out in the cold.  And sure enough, a while later, one of the senior guys on the forum replied to my post and said he would bring my situation up with Google.  Many thanks to both, but especially to Jeff.

The senior guys on the forum are a real interesting group.  They don’t work for Google, but they are a conduit and liaison between the forum and Google’s staff.  As you can imagine, there are a lot of very upset people on the forum, and these senior guys try to help them out.  Often they become the target of people’s anger and frustrations, which they don’t deserve to be, but some people get really angry when they get UnFriended… I understand how they feel.

I don’t know how many senior guys are on there, but I learned that in order to get them to help, you need to prove that you are not some flake or just a hysterically bitter ex-Friend.  In order to prove that, you need to follow their 4 Steps and advise that you have done so.  I guess maybe it shows that you really do want to become Friends again?

Anyway, as upset as I have been about being UnFriended, I have really tried to appear calm and reasonable on my posts and replies on the forum, and having gone through hundreds of threads on there, I am certain that leaving anger out is very helpful.

I don’t know what the outcome will be, but I know I have to remain patient, and my fingers are crossed.  I don’t know the senior guy that elevated my case to Google, but KeithR, if you should ever come across this post… many thanks and a big hug :) 

My biggest hug though is for Jeff, who came to my rescue, and inspired me not to go down without a fight – thanks Jeff xo :)

A side note… Dee’s blog The Beauty Hunter was re-opened today by Google!!  I know how upset Dee was that it was closed, and he has been so frustrated with how long it has taken, but he remained vigilant and did not give up.  Good on you Dee!!

A Week Ago Today

It was a week ago today that Google UnFriended me… and what a week it has been!

I have spent at least 20 hours pouring through the various help forums on Google trying to make sense of it all, as well as reading blogs.  I always thought that I was fairly bright, so I figured I would be able to get to the bottom of this misunderstanding very quickly, and be ReFriended within a day or two.

But I have to tell you that the amount of information that you have to try to digest is staggering.  There are bits and pieces scattered all over.  I found myself constantly reading things that I didn’t understand, and then I’d read something else from another thread that would suddenly make me understand something I didn’t earlier… and then trying to find that original bit of information again… Information Overload!!

And people are so angry and frustrated too on the help forums, and I understand why, it’s really hard not to take all this personally.  There are lots of people trying to help too… more about that later.

But I have found out a lot of things this week, so I thought maybe I could create this blog and share some of the stuff I have learned. 

If I can help someone else wade through the process a little easier than I have been able to, even with the help I had, then maybe we can start focusing on Solutions and Prevention.

I really don’t think Google has turned into a homophobe, I just think that he is trying to juggle so many friendships and be very careful about not offending anyone… but some of Goog’s friends are homophobes, and they like to take advantage of some of the processes Google has put in place so as not to offend.

The Good Times

Google and I go way back, we met while Googs was still the new kid, and just a new way to find out stuff.  Googs was really smart and his answers were a lot better than the other guys you could ask at the time.  And Googs seemed to be able to understand what you were trying to ask when you weren’t very clear.  What I loved most was that Googs made asking stuff fun.  So I started hanging with him and told all my friends… hey, stop asking those other guys… just ask Googs… everyone loved Googs!

But what I loved so much was that Google listened to all of our gripes about the internet and technology… and came up with some really cool ideas about how it could be.  Googs said that we shouldn’t be controlled by some corporate titan, and be required to fit into their model… the model needs to adapt to what we want…

And because Google was so open and sharing with new ideas, a lot of really smart people started working with him and turning those ideas into real stuff that we could use.  And we knew, unlike Bill, Google would protect our stuff, and our right to privacy.  Sure Googs kept on wanting to know more and more about what we used the internet for… but he reassured us, and promised, that he just needed all that to make it better for us.  I knew Googs really well, so I said SURE to everything he asked, and if my friends expressed concern, I convinced them that you can trust Google… he is just the opposite of Bill… Google has kept his word and turned all these cool ideas into stuff that we can use.  My best argument was about loss of data if your hard drive failed… if you store all your stuff with Google, I would say, you never have to worry about that again, and you can access it anywhere in the world… how cool is that!!

So I started using Google more and more for stuff I used to do and store on my computer.  I was very nervous at the start too, I didn’t want to just upload my hard drive to Googs and think my data would be secure forever… I did some research… and started using more and more of G’s services gradually… as I got more comfortable… and I saw all of G’s messages that always popped up constantly reassuring me about the safety of my data and the security of it never being lost.

I started with Bookmarks and shortly after with Reader.  I had a desktop PC and then finally got a notebook, and I just hated the cumbersome process of synching the bookmarks and RSS feeds on my desktop to the ones on my notebook.  Especially the RSS feeds… I was using a software to track all the blogs I was following, and I could never find a way to synch everything properly.  Google’s Reader solved all that… I thought of it as “God’s Gift”… and the bookmarks… awesome!

I had already been using gmail for a lot of personal communication for quite awhile…. and at the start I used to send copies to Outlook on my desktop for backup, but after a few years of that, I grew more and more comfortable with storing private emails with Google… someone could steal my desktop or notebook, the drive could fail, there could be a fire…. it just made more and more sense to store stuff online, and reduce all the risks and hassles associated with storing data locally and trying to synch two or more computers.  Google solved that nightmare!! 

And then Documents and all the amazing stuff you could do there and not worry about having to synch, started off with regular text files, then Goog's offered pretty much total MS Office capability… synching my desktop with my notebook with my office pc had become such an incredible frustration… Google… you are my saviour…

I still relied heavily on Outlook though for work, and I have tried many many programs to synch 3 or more computers together, but have never quite been able to set them up properly.  Using Google’s Calendars and Contacts would alleviate all that… safe, secure, and no multiple versions to be concerned with…

I never made the conversion from local to “cloud” storage for work-related data… but I was close to… EVER so close… it just made so much sense… and the sense of it was not a result of naivety either… I had 10 years of experience, and gradual indoctrination into G’s services… I mean ALL of them… I have been a big supporter and spent a lot of time, not just learning how to incorporate G’s services into a practical solution for me, and all the benefits, but also spent a lot of time researching the downside.  Incorporating Google’s services into practical use was no naive , ill-thought, or impulsive decision… it just made so much sense from so many angles.

When I became UnFriended last Tuesday, my computer tally at that time was… a desktop in my home office, a desktop in my kitchen, a desktop connected to my TV, a notebook, a netbook, an Android cell, and an Archos tablet running on Android…. and using Google to tie everything together was great!!  Everything was synched to each other through my buddy Google, I knew exactly where to look and what I would see on every device… my synchronization issues  were solved once and for all… and my data was secure!!  How sweet is that?!?

VERY sweet until Google UnFriends you… and then everything is gone!!  In an instant… a blink of the eye… EVERYTHING!!

No warning, no opportunity provided to recover critical data stored with Google – not even 1 hour or 1 minute – it is just gone!! And that is with paid storage too!!

Something is wrong with Google… very wrong… even Mr. Gates, upon detecting suspect MS software, does not delete all your personal data!

Oh come on… you are undoubtedly thinking to yourself… Google would never do that… and you must have done something really horrible to warrant such harsh action… they can’t just delete everything?!?

BUT THEY DO… all the time… without warning… and without recourse.

oh guffaw… there must be someone you can email or call… NOPE… even when you pay for storage as I did (twice), there is no real person, either by email or by phone, that you can contact… there is only a form provided and a commitment to provide an answer to that form with 48 hours.  I completed one form the day it happened, and two others on March 16th.  I posted an appeal for help on G’s forum on the 17th… as of this moment… there has been no response… and no reason provided… seriously… NOTHING !!  I have only received emails acknowledging receipt that the form was received!!  5 days later… nothing!!

If the data stored with the deleted paid-storage was work related… I would be devastated… and potentially fired as a result…

I can still only presume this was some kind of error, and I will be ReFriended…and my personal data stored with Google – through PAID storage - will be made accessible again… but I am astonished that something like this is allowed to happen at all… that a company like Google…  can delete someone’s existence, and personal data… with absolutely no accountability.

My intent with this blog is not to bash Google, rather to be just another person that speaks up and says…this is not right… if enough of us do it, then maybe Google will get back in touch with the Google I have supported all these years.  I am under no illusion that I will or can effect that change…

All I know… 5 days later… is that I am completely and utterly dumbfounded that any company is allowed to operate with this kind of impunity regarding destruction of personal data – paid for or not!!  Unfortunately, each and every online storage provider, operates the same way.

ACCOUNTABILTY, clearly-defined STANDARDS, and RECOURSE must be a requirement of any company storing personal data, whether paid for or not…

I don’t think this is unreasonable…