Goodbye, Xana

I suppose I should write a proper farewell to the blogging site that used to be known as Xanga.  As you may know by now, they have been diagnosed with terminal mismanagement & will likely be shutting down on July 15. You know, unless they can extort another $60K from their users, many of whom already paid for lifetime premium service & are now facing the loss of their blog unless they pay again.  This type of flip-flopping is why the site is in it’s death throes. 

It’s also why I never really got back into the swing of blogging there after a year-long haitus due to limited internet access (which ironically I am facing now, but have slightly better options this time).  It had been clear to me for a while that things were not going well.  Traffic was dwindling, content quality was bottoming out, ads were becoming more prolific, and user control and choice were being limited in the name of ‘advancement.’  Advancement, I might add, that usually didn’t work.

When I returned to the wonderful world of having internet access, I realized very quickly that Xanga had slammed into a very large iceberg while I was gone, and most folks were still dancing and dining, oblivious to the fact that the Titanic was going down.  Thus, it came as no real shock or surprise to me to log in yesterday and see that the ship, indeed, is sinking.

In fact, it is more surprising that the users are at least getting some warning, and time to download their files.  Hopefully the archives will actually work… many times before I’ve downloaded them only to find corrupted files which can’t be opened or accessed. 

On the off chance that Xanga is able to raise the funds they need to relaunch the blogging site, they plan to use another platform – such as wordpress or blogger (to quote the Xanga Team) – and charge users money to have a Xanga user name on a third party site.  Why anyone would want to pay money for the same service they can get for free is beyond me, but it is further proof of the complete lack of business concept on the part of Xanga’s management. 

I will conclude by saying I wish them no ill.  I’m saddened, as is the entire Xanga community, by it’s likely demise.  I’m angry that a once great site was so badly mishandled that it has come to this point.  And I’m frustrated that the mismanagement means the loss of a large, fun community.   

But life will go on without Xanga.  For me it already has – right here, my new blog home.  I hope that all who knew me from Xanga will “follow” this blog and we can begin building a new, stronger, larger, more open community (registration should not be required to comment here – if it is, I apologize, and will adjust the settings).