#93 – Myspace Loses 12 Years’ of Music

#93 – Myspace Loses 12 Years' of Music

Chris EvansData Management, Garbage Collection

This week, Chris and Martin discuss the issues at Myspace, which recently disclosed that 12 years’ worth of user content had been lost during a (failed) server migration.  The once-mighty Myspace was the largest social networking site from 2005 to 2009 (according to Wikipedia) and had estimated revenues of $109 million in 2011.  So, how could a company with such as large valuation and solid revenue manage to lose data so easily?

In 2005, News Corporation purchased Myspace for $580 million, later selling he company in 2011 for a rumoured $35 million.  Would there have been due diligence during the acquisition?

The discussion continues to look at exactly how much trust we can have in free sites that use other revenue sources, like advertising.  What about free tiers from cloud storage providers like Dropbox?  Do they offer the same level of guarantee as paid customers?  Finally, the conversation wraps up with some recommended best practices.

Elapsed Time: 00:24:05

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 – Intros
  • 00:01:00 – What was Myspace?
  • 00:02:30 – What was the data loss issue?
  • 00:04:10 – Surely social media companies don’t single instance?
  • 00;04:30 – Was this a long-term problem?
  • 00:06:30 – Should you have rights on a free service?
  • 00:09:30 – Wouldn’t data protection be picked up during acquisition due diligence?
  • 00:13:00 – Data protection should be part of the initial platform design
  • 00:15:00 – Don’t rely on one copy – keep at least three….
  • 00:16:30 – What if a vendor decides to block your data access?
  • 00:19:00 – So what are best practice recommendations?
  • 00:23:30 – Wrap Up

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