I don’t know anyone working at Foursquare, yet I’m quite mad at them at this very moment. This morning I couldn’t log into my account, and later had to found out that my account might have been deleted. After a short moment of shock, I started wondering:
What if Foursquare just deleted a valuable part of my (online) identity?
Now let’s assume the folks in New York weren’t able to restore any of the deleted data. That means hundreds of users lost a few thousands of check-ins, comments, and recommendations given. All those minutes spent loading the app, typing, etc. are gone forever. And there’s nothing we could do about it. Sure, we could go back to a few of the places we have been to and check in once again. Though it just wouldn’t be the same.
Now that was “just” Foursquare (that coming from someone who loves this LBS). Just imagine what would happen if Facebook deleted a few thousand user accounts. Pictures, posts, events, friends – lost forever.
Have we become too dependent on those kind of services?
UPDATE: Just after I clicked “publish”, I was able to log into my account again. Suddenly I feel complete again.
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