The Cloud is certainly hanging over us. Most of the articles I read, talk about the Cloud’s amazing silver linings. The marketplace is certainly doing its best to sing the praises of the tremendous benefits that rain from the Cloud. There certainly are benefits. I also see lots of reasons to bring along my umbrella. Sometimes the rain just leaves you soggy and smelly. Just ask your dog.
When is being in the Cloud not so heavenly? The first of a four part series…
How about when your Cloud-based service provider goes down?
Let’s take my experience with Hootsuite vs. Tweetdeck. These two programs provide essentially the same functions. They both enable you to manage your social media within one place. I was a major proponent of Tweetdeck, until Twitter bought it. The current version somehow lost my favorite features. Now we use Hootsuite. Truly, the only major difference now is that Tweetdeck resides on your computer while Hootsuite resides in the Cloud.
When we first moved to Hootsuite quite awhile back , I quickly discovered that Tweetdeck never “went down.” I had always been able to open my Tweetdeck software on my computer and do my work. It never failed. Hootsuite being in the Cloud could go down and be unreachable at any time which prevented me from using the hour that I had scheduled on my calendar in order to enter and schedule my posts for the next few days. One of the major benefits of these software solutions is being able to schedule posts for the future: not so easy when the website in the Cloud is down.
Being in the Cloud adds an opportunity for instability into the mix. Admittedly, Hootsuite and any other Cloud provider is aware of the fact that they need 110% “up” time, but as we all know, even companies who ONLY live in the Cloud don’t achieve 100% up time, just ask Twitter. I like and use Hootsuite. It is the best solution at this point, even though I would love to see a few improvements.
The Cloud parade is going forward, rain or shine. Make no mistake, you are going to be using the Cloud. There are some benefits, even for us as the end user. Frankly, you aren’t going to have much choice. Just be sure to grab your slicker as you head out the door from your laptop, tablet and phone.
I’ll share more on this in my column next week. I’d love to hear your positive and negative experiences from the Cloud.
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Did you miss one in the series?
When Being in the Cloud Isn’t Heavenly…
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
I would love for you to leave a comment below.
Well written article with helpful information. Not just highliting a particular form of communication over another, but showing a practical everyday difference between the two. Information with a personal business touch, a way for people to see themselves in your situtation and how their business day would be affected. The opening paragraph, in my opinion, uses the “play on words” quite effectively. The cloud,even though refering to cyber stuff, and the actual clouds Jesus created is an interesting twist which I enjoyed. Good Work Scott and much success to ya’!!
Michael C. Williams (Cameron Michaels)
Thanks very much Michael. Really appreciate the kind words. 🙂
I just read the intro. I haven’t read parts 1-4 yet, but will. But I have been using Hootsuite for a long time. I found it through Phil Cooke’s use of it. I didn’t know it was in the cloud though, but it’s never gone down for me. And I use the iPhone app a lot also. I just wish that when you entered fb posts on the iPhohe app, that it generated the image for the post like the computer version.
I like it it…I think your analysis is spot on. We are moving twubs to the Cloud but that is for performance and cost…the data is not critical, however. So, everything you mentioned, I resonate with.
I’ve been using cloud-based services for years and have experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly. Downtime was a big problem a few years ago, and speed continues to be an occasional issue (Hootsuite was rather slow this morning, in fact). When you’re in the cloud you’re more vulnerable to hackers, too.
All in all, I prefer to use certain cloud-based applications because of ubiquitous access from multiple devices.