There’s a reason I don’t use services like Tumblr (or LiveJournal, or Blogger, or any of a dozen other similar “free” services) and instead still post things here on my own blog – and that is: I own this blog, but I don’t own Tumblr*.
Now, this may not – scratch that, this will not apply to everyone, but for me, my words are my “product,” so to speak. They are the thing I spend time creating, and they are important to me – important enough that I would not want them to be lost.
Whenever I’m trying to decide whether to use some new web-based service (at least, the “free” ones), I ask myself, “if this service disappeared tomorrow, would it be a huge loss for me?” If the answer is “yes,” then I either won’t use the service, or I will only post low-importance things there (or I’ll duplicate the content elsewhere).
Naturally, there are some “free” services that I trust sufficiently to get over the “what if it disappeared” hurdle – things like Gmail, to name one example. (Though that doesn’t stop me from keeping a local, cached backup copy, just in case!)
Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts – and of course everyone else’s criteria will differ from mine. But it’s worth thinking about before you commit to creating a lot of content with whatever the next “cool” new web service is!
* This goes for any paid service, really. If I pay for it, I generally expect not to be left in the cold. With a free service, you can’t really expect anything.
