Why migrate your content?
Some folks have asked, “Why should I bother migrating my Google+ content at all?” Here are some reasons. Not all will apply to everybody.
1. “It is amazing content.” Some people have created essays, analysis, photographs, discussions, or other content that makes the world a better place. Why not preserve it for future generations?
2. “But I never made anything fancy, I just reshared links or memes.” Don’t forget that even reshared links and memes may have served as a watering hole for others to comment on or discuss. Some of the most worthwhile content on Google+ is hidden in comments on these posts. Make sure you use a solution like Google+ exporter that preserves all the comments too.
3. “No, really, nobody ever commented on my stuff much.” Even if there is no great discussion in the comments, even simple reshare links are often things you may want to refer back to in the future. Imagine yourself next year thinking, “Darn. I remember that I shared a link on Google+ last year about this. I sure wish I could search my old posts to find it again.” If it was interesting enough for you to share in the past, it may well be something you want to see again.
4. “I just posted memes and silly stuff I’ll never want to see again.” Okay. But what about everyone who followed you? I can’t tell you how many times I have thought, “I remember that Jessica Malarkey posted a hilarious meme about that a couple of years ago.” Google search usually finds the post if I put in the persons name and a few keywords. If you transfer your content someplace new that Google and other search engines can search, you will be helping out the rest of us. Thanks!
5. “I don’t think I ever really had any followers.” See #4. People may have seen your stuff without you knowing.
6. “I never posted publicly, and it was all silly in-jokes anyway. And I didn’t have any followers.” Okay, maybe it’s not worth it for you to migrate your data anywhere.
Google+ Exporter makes it easy to export all your data and to import it to Blogger or Wordpress. Why not just do it?
Note: Google+ Exporter keeps getting bug fixes and improvements. I recommend downloading all your data with it now, but only experimenting with the upload until the last possible minute. It is easy to refresh your downloaded data with new versions of G+E without having to download everything again. My plan is to keep downloading with newer versions right up until 4/2, and then cutover to Blogger or Wordpress then.
Some folks have asked, “Why should I bother migrating my Google+ content at all?” Here are some reasons. Not all will apply to everybody.
1. “It is amazing content.” Some people have created essays, analysis, photographs, discussions, or other content that makes the world a better place. Why not preserve it for future generations?
2. “But I never made anything fancy, I just reshared links or memes.” Don’t forget that even reshared links and memes may have served as a watering hole for others to comment on or discuss. Some of the most worthwhile content on Google+ is hidden in comments on these posts. Make sure you use a solution like Google+ exporter that preserves all the comments too.
3. “No, really, nobody ever commented on my stuff much.” Even if there is no great discussion in the comments, even simple reshare links are often things you may want to refer back to in the future. Imagine yourself next year thinking, “Darn. I remember that I shared a link on Google+ last year about this. I sure wish I could search my old posts to find it again.” If it was interesting enough for you to share in the past, it may well be something you want to see again.
4. “I just posted memes and silly stuff I’ll never want to see again.” Okay. But what about everyone who followed you? I can’t tell you how many times I have thought, “I remember that Jessica Malarkey posted a hilarious meme about that a couple of years ago.” Google search usually finds the post if I put in the persons name and a few keywords. If you transfer your content someplace new that Google and other search engines can search, you will be helping out the rest of us. Thanks!
5. “I don’t think I ever really had any followers.” See #4. People may have seen your stuff without you knowing.
6. “I never posted publicly, and it was all silly in-jokes anyway. And I didn’t have any followers.” Okay, maybe it’s not worth it for you to migrate your data anywhere.
Google+ Exporter makes it easy to export all your data and to import it to Blogger or Wordpress. Why not just do it?
Note: Google+ Exporter keeps getting bug fixes and improvements. I recommend downloading all your data with it now, but only experimenting with the upload until the last possible minute. It is easy to refresh your downloaded data with new versions of G+E without having to download everything again. My plan is to keep downloading with newer versions right up until 4/2, and then cutover to Blogger or Wordpress then.
#6 is me (I'm ashamed to admit).
ReplyDelete"Why not just do it?"
ReplyDeleteThere are at least as many reasons as the ones listed, but for me the big one is "there are only so many hours in the day and I have only one life".
I'm reconciled that not every joke or brilliant observation I may have made is at all necessary to repeat 3 or 4 years from now.
I won't go through the points point by point, but in every case it may or may not be an issue for everyone here, ever. Some may want to save souvenirs, others want to save every iota of the record (~saving 8 years in a jar) and some may spend the next 8 months recreating the last 8 months. In the end I strongly believe different people have different needs and priorities.
Exporting/migrating is an obvious choice for many, "moving on" for others, and many more (like myself) are focused on saving what's truly precious (and not elsewhere) and then focusing on the other thing, without which posts may be meaningless: relationships. With people, groups, communities, etc. Look forward too. Plan for reconnecting, see what's "out there", etc.
I just don't think people need to be "guilted" into going through a huge job of download/export if in fact there is no reason - or emotional investment - in doing it. Many, many people are focused on the interactions and many on saving past memories. That said, whatever is important to you - better be finishing up real soon!!
deleted my previous comment because I noticed that the new version of G+ Exporter had exactly the feature I was looking for.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm gonna stress test Blogger's import capabilities by importing 10,000 posts from on xml file
Thom Thomas At my slow internet speeds, I had to do 1000 at a time... because the CAPTCHA times out. Seriously, the CAPTCHA.
ReplyDeleteMichael Fenichel No guilt intended.
ReplyDeleteBut for those who are curious, it isn’t a huge time intensive job.
1. Download G+ Exporter. 1 second to click the link. Spend 0-10 mins depending on your connection doing something else in your life while the app downloads. medium.com - Google Plus Exporter – Medium
2. Run the app and Click the buttons to download your content. Maybe 5 or 10 seconds. Go live your life while it does all the work for you.
3. Create a blog at blogger.com or Wordpress.com. This also takes just a few clicks. Maybe a minute at most.
4. Another minute for G+E to export the data for your chosen format.
5. Another few seconds to tell Blogger to import the file.
6. Live your life while the file uploads (a few minutes to hours depending on connection speed and size of your file).
7. You are done.
So, for 5 minutes of actual work, all your G+ content can be on the web for eternity (or at least until Blogger or Wordpress go away).
John Lewis I think they fixed that with their new Tor-based download.
ReplyDeleteMichael Fenichel I know what you mean re: no time.
ReplyDeleteI have 10,000+ G+ posts and while it took a long time to index all those - I was able to work on other things while it did that.
I think I've spent about an hour of actual time using the Exporter and about 2 hours getting re-familiar with Blogger.
Brian Holt Hawthorne
ReplyDeleteThanks, and no snark/finger-pointing intended.
But you've lost me at #3, trying to reconcile that with not being a "huge time-intensive job". a) I don't have, use, need, or want Blogger or Wordpress. (Point of fact, surprising as it may be, the majority of G+ users don't.) b) If I am able to export existing G+ replica pages, aside from "how will that work?" (threads, circles, albums within collections, etc.), WHERE will it work? If I have 1000's of photos and 10's of 1000s of posts, where will they be hosted? For free?
c) Is this advice specific, maybe, to new destination platforms? Just above this comment is a Medium-focused post. MeWe posts are everywhere, including a new importer tool. So...
Apologies if I'm not addressing the many who indeed are looking to import to blog platforms, but as someone only concerned with photo collections and some amazing threads or favorite albums, I have no need or desire to start a whole new career on a new platform irrelevant to me. At the same time, with MeWe, even if I could import my world of G+ verbatim (of which you may color me skeptical), if it were possible, where would it sit? Can I share a url to the general public and will it be searchable, say in Google? Do I have a terrabyte or so of space to host it all on MeWe (or anywhere else)?
So I applaud all the tools and individual efforts to get where you want to go.
I'm just adamant (being in part my life work to convey) about people having different needs and goals. Now, in a time of pending crisis and already growing stress and anxiety about our mass destruction imminently ("here") there are many different priorities, not to mention interest levels and resources in terms of managing massive data as data, rather than as photos, contact lists, poems, whatever... "YMMV" Good luck getting where you want to go, everybody!
Brian Holt Hawthorne No, the upload to Blogger.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis Ah. I have only tried little test uploads so far.
ReplyDeleteThat CAPTCHA has a three-minute time limit. I timed it. Then I timed my uploads, I had to go with 1000 per.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis It sounds as if you are talking about an upload captcha rather than a download captcha . Could you clarify which system is doing that on uploads?
ReplyDeleteBrian Holt Hawthorne A few additional points for your original list, in part from the #PlexodusWiki FAQ.
ReplyDeleteQ: Do I have to export my data?
A: No, but if you don't do so now, or soon, you may not have the option to later. This is covered at the Data Migration page in the previous answer. Google+ content will be deleted permanently by Google beginning April 2, 2019.
Q: What if I don't know how to use / import / access the content?
A: There are and likely will be more tools to do so. Several automated import tools exist now, others are in process.
Q: What if I really just don't want to do this, don't see the use, think it's a stupid idea?
A: That's fine, though it's also final as of April 2. And your personal case may not and does not apply to all others.
Q: Can / will some content be preserved by other means?
A: Yes. It's likely some of your content will be included in others' archives. The Internet Archive should be adding most public Google+ content to its archive of the Web, the Wayback Machine, as well. So there is a "do-nothing" option, though it's not guaranteed to work.
(The Internet Archive also has procedures for you to request content removal, if you wish.)
social.antefriguserat.de - FAQ - PlexodusWiki