The graveyard of Internet services does not have to be the graveyard of your creativity too.

Google is shutting down Google+ for consumers following security lapse.

This is a good reminder that services don't live for ever. Most of them are actually very short lived, especially if they are free. Throughout the years I've invested a lot of time and effort in services like Google Buzz, Google+, Posterous (anyone remembers it?), Google Reader, FriendFeed, del.icio.us (that's how it was written back then :-), Jaiku, various commenting services and so many more, only to see them go.

The only place that has been consistent and reliably there for me is my own domain. (It may not be very usable any more, but I can still find my old blog posts from 2004 at www.vrypan.net/log/ )

Keep your content (your stories, your photos, your videos, your discussions) on your own domain. If it's not possible, at least the content that's more important to you. And make sure that any third party services you may use offer a good way to get your content out of them, before you start using them.

And if you are a creator, keep in mind that the best way for your works to live long is to make sure they can be copied and that they are copied ;-)

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Photo source: Wikimedia Commons

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