Or maybe it's just going to learn a new language.
Everybody was freaking out at the news this morning that SUP, the Russian company that owns LJ, had cut a bunch of the staff from the San Francisco office. The next wave of off-site backups and migrations to IJ started. The drama llama was saddled, ridden hard, put away wet, and trotted out again and again.
Something similar is happening with a site known as Ficlets, a site that encouraged users to write 1024-byte short fiction. Lots of people used it. And a few weeks ago, the notice was given: doors closing, everybody out. (I love their suggestion for archiving content: people should save their ficlet stories to Word. This might be a bit tedious for anyone who’s written more than ten; and hellish for anyone who’s contributed more than 30 story fragments.)
I feel for folks who are contributing to a site but have no way to capture their own content. It’s one thing to know that several dozen LJ comments - many little more than social pleasantries, a few that were kind of interesting - will be lost. It would be another thing altogether to know that all the hours you’d spent composing fiction, creating graphics…was all going away. It would be wiped out in an instant, and there isn’t really any convenient way to save them. (LJ at least has several migratory tools that others have created. Comments won’t be ported over, but entries will.)
Some folks haven’t made the jump to having their own webspace because they can’t afford the cost. Many others haven’t made the jump because they don’t know how to set up and maintain a web site of their own. (Things have gotten much, much easier - believe me.) The biggest loss, though, would be the community. While many of the blogging systems these days offer a bit more in the way of tools for the webmaster or gadgets to enhance the web site (comments, membership modules, easy search function, taggings, simple RSS/syndication feeds), they can’t necessarily offer everyone else on the same server, in the same environment. That takes time to build. It’s possible to build; but not everyone really knows how to go about doing that.
But I do.
To everyone who reads this, is curious about setting up their own web site that they own and control, and wants a hand to hold - here’s a coupon for hosting with Scribehost. That’s the hosting company I own and have run for the past six years (going on seven). I’ve helped other clients get set up, and even have a recommendation for a good blogging / website software. (It isn’t free…but it’s very easy to use, I will help out with templates, and you can have as many of your sites on it as you want.) Just check out the available hosting plans, go to order, and enter the promotion code skyfalling for $50 off your first hosting bill. That will let you get the smallest hosting plan for one year plus a domain for less than $30. (I’m not a big believer in the hard sell; but seeing as some folks are hosted on ElJay and may be thinking of moving, I thought I’d see if I could pick up a few more clients. Heck, if you stopped by, you’ve been reading my journal off and on for the last month - so you sort of know one of the people behind it all.)
I really hope that most of these communities are better braced to weather the current economic storm and its fallout.
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