Magnolia Goes “Poof” – Could That Happen to One of Your Free Apps?

by Anita Campbell

February 22, 2009 at 10:23 pm · Filed under Web Apps

Ma.gnolia, the bookmarking service, suffered a corrupted MySQL database (which also corrupted its backup) and the service is no more.

Larry Halff, the founder speaks frankly in the video below giving a behind-the-scenes look into how Ma.gnolia was run. As he points out, it may have seemed as if there was a sizeable company behind the site, but during most of the history of the service it was just one person — him. He calls it a “labor of love” and described how he bankrolled it all.

http://www.vimeo.com/3205188

Citizen Garden Episode 11: Whither Ma.gnolia? from Larry Halff on Vimeo.

Chris Messina, who interviews Larry, says starting at minute 19:15 what you will no doubt be thinking as you watch the video: that you don’t know what kind of backup and infrastructure and IT practices are being employed in other Web services.

It’s food for thought. Consider where and with whom to entrust your business data from your small business.

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4 Comments »

That is crazy to think that apps can really just disappear overnight and we can do nothing about it. A good reminder to not “put all our eggs in one basket”.

Hi Amanda, yes, it’s a shame. Ma.gnolia was a good service too. But there are bigger lesson,s one of which is not to put your eggs all in one basket.

But another lesson is: do due diligence on any services you use in proportion to how crucial the data and/or the software application is to your business.

I find it amazing that on the homepage Larry indicates that he is looking into relaunching a private service on a more robust platform. It is great he learned the importance of a robust infrastructure, yet I question whether or not others would return to a service under the Ma.gnolia brand.

As an employee of an online database company that understands the importance of having appropriate infrastructure in place when dealing with business critical data, I am always amazed at the number of companies that don’t inquire as to the back-up and data security features. It is fortunate for our customers that we have procedures in place, however I feel there are many companies out there like Ma.gnolia without adequate infrastructure.

thanks for the alert. we didn’t use Ma.gnolia but you brought up a great point about research who you entrust your data and not to rely on ONE firm

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