Hey all.
So, with or without Xanga meeting its do or die deadline, I'm probably out on July 15th. I've been here for five years, and had an absolutely fantastic time, but I'm feeling kind of done here. Because of Xanga, I've made some great friends, read a lot of great work, and pushed myself in ways I couldn't imagine otherwise. But not enough for me to scrounge the $48 together, even if I had the money (unemployed college grad, woo).
While I really like the community here, there's little doubt in my mind that said community hasn't shrunk in recent years. This place just feels a little emptier and a little quieter than it used to. It could be a matter of perspective, but it's what I've seen and felt.
And for a site that calls itself "The Blogging Community", Xanga's a fairly mediocre blogging platform. I mean, the frontpage and the blogging software felt quaint when I joined in 2007, and the auxiliary services (especially audio and video hosting) have never worked with any reliability. All of that became painfully clear once I started a Wordpress in 2010. To be fair, Xanga lends itself more to community building than WP, but from a mercenary blogging standpoint, my Wordpress has come with more add-ons, user-friendliness, readouts, bells, and whistles than the Xang ever offered me. In terms of blogging, it's just the stronger platform; a likely reason that Xanga 2.0 is heading that way.
The Xanga community hasn't been blind to the site's needs, either. Xanga's layouts and features might have been cutting edge in 2002, but when my WordPress autosaves every time I stop typing for five seconds, Tumblr will save anything I close out without posting, and even my Twitter will leave a half completed tweet in my space thingy if I close the site, and Xanga doesn't have a fucking "Save Draft" feature, you are not only failing to keep up, but you're arguably behind what a start-up would need to not get laughed off the net. This one might be a nitpick, but the actual "write your blog here" screen has always felt a bit unwieldy, but it lends itself well enough to bigger pieces, I suppose. I gave up on hosting audio here years ago, and any entry where I tried video inevitably devolved to me saying "Fuck it, here's the YouTube embed". I know I'm bordering rant at this point, but these are such little things to fix. The point of a blogging site should be to make blogging as easy for its members as possible.
I'm not a fan of the pay-to-blog model, either, especially considering 1. How Xanga's asking for it, and 2. the price. My take on the "We need 60K by July 15th" is essentially the Xanga bean counters going "Ok, look, we've made a lot of mistakes, and we need a bail out basically right now", and the services you'll get equate to "You know, stuff you'd get from a blog site!" If they want to charge for it, I'm not going to hold that against them, or anyone that pays in/donates to the cause (If you have the means and the desire, I applaud you), but my wordpress lets me run my site however I like for free, and a domain name/register for half of what Xanga's asking. Xanga's asking too much for too little.
But, it ain't all bad. Thinking about and writing this entry's made me appreciate what I did here, and who I got to do it with. I'm going to keep uploading entries until the final day (even if I'm not posting, I'm writing, which is kind of the point, yeah?), so I'll be around from here out. "Closing out" can be the formal final step, but it doesn't have to be the end. Drop by if you like.
Again, thanks everyone who's been by DLW, or that I've met/talked to here in the last five years. We had some fun, didn't we?
And, for those who are curious to keep contact After The End...
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Bgibs1
Twitter: www.twitter.com/BGibs122
Tumblr: http://androidexistential.tumblr.com/
That Wordpress I Talk So Damn Much About: www.rantingaboutmusic.com
The Facebook Page of That Wordpress I Talk So Damn Much About: www.facebook.com/rantingaboutmusicblog
Email: Ask and ye shall receive.
-DLW
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