November 29, 2011

XML is the digital dial tone of the Web

It has now been 133 days since I first contacted backupmytweets about the error message above, and during that time I have not received a single response! I have contacted them using numerous emails and tweets, both in the public timeline and direct messages. I’m calling this as either a company that’s in trouble or they just don’t care about customer support.

When I started using Twitter regularly, I soon started to look for a way to have a local backup of my tweets because Twitter does not allow you to see more than your 3200 most recent tweets. Things that are interesting enough to write about are worth saving for the future.

There didn’t seem to be an easy, reliable, way to do this but backupmytweets worked well, allowing the archive to be downloaded as a PDF file or various types of data file. In July this year it stopped working and I first contacted them to ask for help to understand why.

Doesn't fill you with confidence does it?

Since that initial enquiry I’ve not received a single response or any sort of acknowledgement at all. I tried upgrading to the ETA Download Service ($12.00/year) in case the problem was due to exceeding the available storage and this has not solved the problem.

Some snake oil sir? Reduce the pain in those joints!

I’ve now demanded a full refund as I’m completely dissatisfied with the level of service they provide, despite what was a promising start. If you are looking around for a backup service for your Twitter timeline I would strongly recommend you avoid backupmytweets.

Software


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