I just started using Backupify to back up some data of popular websites. First of all, go signing up now before 1/31/2010 if you want to use it for free.

Note

On May 1, 2015, I received an email about an action required to upgrade for my Social Media freemium plan. If I recall correctly, there seem to be a lifetime promise. Anyway, nothing is free forever. (2015-07-23T22:46:11Z)

My quick list of its features:

  • Supports own S3 account
  • Supports multiple accounts of all services
  • Email notifications of backing up status

You can back up your data to its S3 or your own S3 account (That setting doesnt seem changeable after sign up) . You can also get a daily or weekly updates about the status. It supports multiple accounts of a service, for example, you have two Twitter accounts. You can authenticate first one, then re-logging in with another and authenticate the second one. You only need one Backupify account to back up all accounts your have that it supports. You can see how it support multiple account of a service from the screenshots as follows.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CLdf4ORfzWk/Szq2QDWs_XI/AAAAAAAACZs/BB9X5_aZKfY/s400/Backupify%20::%20Settings_1262138841344.png

As it is a backup service, the data preservation is the point not the presentation, therefore the backed up data may not be pleasant as you view them.

1   Twitter

The data includes almost everything except new Retweets:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CLdf4ORfzWk/Szq3jMY9dpI/AAAAAAAACZw/B0bvA3qjCmQ/s640/twitter.png

It even provides a PDF version of your tweets. Here is first two pages of mine:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CLdf4ORfzWk/Szq3w8Cet7I/AAAAAAAACZ0/ij0HV7eresQ/s400/tmp1.png http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CLdf4ORfzWk/Szq32X2-GLI/AAAAAAAACZ4/QoQWZdDjeyI/s400/tmp2.png

The rest of data are all XML format or Atom feed, they should be the same as you access to your feeds or via Twitter API.

For normal users, its just a file backup, you probably couldnt do much with it if you dont have a proper software to process it, such as simple searching.

2   Flickr

My Flickr account is free. As you should know, photos of free account can only be accessed from your photostream for latest 200 photos. But obviously, the Flickr API allows more or all, you can see by yourself:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CLdf4ORfzWk/Szq5Z72n_uI/AAAAAAAACZ8/-oNEf8LvOuk/s400/flickr.png

I am not satisfied with this because you only have photo files and the titles of photos. Your descriptions of photos are not backed up. Each link is linked to a image file.

You can only download one by one, there is no option to allow you to download them at once (this is unrealistic I have to say), or download them by batch.

The should at least provide a full link list of files on S3, therefore you can use other software if you do need to download them into your harddrive. If you cant get data onto your computer, this sometimes might be less useful.

Also, using pagination to look up a photo is really hard if you know which photo you need. Searching functionality is required in my opinion.

I also wonder if I upgrade my Flickr account to pro, would it re-backup? Because photos on free account are limited up to 1024 pixels in both width and height.

3   Google Docs

Its same story for Google Docs. Title only, no searching, no batch download. Docs and Spreadsheet files are mixed up, sorting by dates. More, the file formats are .DOC and .XLS. If your are a OpenOffice.org supporter, you wouldnt be like this.

4   WordPress

I have WordPress.com but no self-hosting WordPress. This backup needs to install a plugin.

5   Delicious/Facebook

Both are XML files. For Facebook, the files contains friends, links, notes, statuses, and events. I dont have any photo albums on Facebook. I am not sure if Backupify would back them up.

6   Blogger

It backs up all posts of your blogs in Atom feed format.

7   FriendFeed

In XML feed with stylesheet, it looks like in browser:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CLdf4ORfzWk/Szq90fLrv0I/AAAAAAAACaA/fcjXe45WCag/s800/friendfeed.png

8   Gmail

It supported Gmail, but it is disabled now, it might be back online soon.

9   Conclusion

It has more service supports, but thats all I have been using. Basically, it does what it claims, backing up. If you need more to do on back up files, you will need another program.

However, I think simple searching and batch download is really a requirement. They may not be used often but once you need them, that would be pain because you dont have them on Backupify.

One more thing, some backup seems to be one revision snapshot. That might be a big deal but if you really want to know when you unfollow someone or follow someone, you wouldnt know. But who on earth needs to know that? :)

Its free so far and it does great for the fundamental job. I say dont waste it, go signing up and setting up all of your accounts.