The Perils of Free Web Services

In case you hadn’t noticed, I MoBlog. For those who don’t know, MoBlogging is blogging from your mobile phone, and most folks use it to post pictures from their phone cameras right to the web (see the bottom of the menu bar on the left). To do this, I send the pictures (via MMS if you care) to a service called TextAmerica. And it has been a really good service and free. Easy to use, and some easy ways to integrate it into my regular blog.

Then, two days ago I got an e-mail telling me that they would now only allow free accounts to have 50 pictures in it (not unreasonable). They would delete free accounts with more (like mine). Now this wouldn’t be so bad if they let you download all your pictures off of the site….they don’t. Turned that option off a year ago. The only way to get your pictures (besides manually doing it one by one) is to pay an external service to burn them to CD or DVD and send it to you (about $30 for mine).

OK, this is far from a rant. I knew when I signed up for a free service things might change. I have never put any critical pictures there anyway (after all, I have yet to see a good camera in a phone). Just seems a little….um….crass to make you buy back the pictures you put on the free service if you want to keep them (or pay a monthly fee).

Meanwhile, I think I’m switching over to FLICKR to do this (not quite as easy on the phone side, but much cooler on the web side).

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