i’ve never had any serious cloud issues. but some major glitches today – a failed wordpress update to 2.7 leaving me locked out of several blogs, and now being locked out of the google apps in one of my domais (probably because i forgot my own password?) – made me wonder: what happens when the cloud logs you out? so many people take for granted that their trusted web apps (such as gmail, y!mail or whatever) will always work, and consider them to be safer then their own hard drive (maybe for good reasons), but what happens when the login screen suddenly becomes your enemy?

well, for starters, if you haven’t had any issues yet, don’t assume you will never have. so take some basic precautions such as:

• having a secondary/alternative email configured in your user account, should you ever have to request a new password
• ensure your user accounts are always updated (personal address, telephone etc). this way, if you ever need to ask for a password reset and need to provide proof of identification, you are safe.
• if you configured secret questions, make sure they are a) not obvious to other people and at the same time b) easy (for you) to remember
• backup your stuff from time to time in your own personal storage (yes, that little thing called hard drive or, even better, in an external hard drive). the ‘good’ cloud services always provide tutorials on how you can backup your own data (here is the gmail tutorial)
• if you have several accounts in different services, make it a habit to log in once a week to take a look and check if everything is OK (especially in services where you store content and/or sensitive information)

and… have patience. don’t expect the same level of 24/7 support you will have if you purchase a premium account somewhere if you are using the free service. as painful as it may sound, free service means non-paid – and therefore limited support and responsibility of whoever offers the service (no matter how big the company is). if the service is so critical to you, you may consider throwing in the few bucks that the services usually charge per year so you can expect better support when and if something happens.

One of those predictions was that Indymedia would one day break the mainstream barrier and become a news source for the ordinary person, that would also contribute to it. From where I stand today, even without any direct subject matter expertise anymore, it clearly hasn’t. It may continue to be extremely influential within social movements and alternative journalists, but it is hard to see its name anywhere else, and it continues to be as far away from the main street as it had been in 2001. It brings news to thousands of people, yes, but not to the millions once imagined in pre-9/11 times. And even the thousands of people, according to QuantCast, are not actually in increasing month on month.

Indymedia Traffic according to QuantCast

However, it is interesting to see how the mainstream media incorporated some things that Indymedia was also about. What caught my attention back then was not the actual network and its intricate sets of collectives and editorial guidelines, but the ability that ordinary people had to contribute with content. CNN calls it iReport.com these days. The Brazilian internet portal I worked started this with one of the Carnival coverages, asking people to submit their pics of the parties. Most big media outlets asks, one way or another, for contributions from its readers.

Yep, feel free to call it user generated content (although sometimes I doubt if the label still has a relevant meaning… user to me implies a one way relationship, that is probably long gone). And, as much as this whole ‘contribution’ thing is still changing the relationship with the press and may be increasingly shaping the format of the news these days, this may be yet another lost outdated discussion when the next wave comes (if it is not here already).