What. The. F*ck. Xanga.
Did you see what Jon posted this morning? In case you didn’t, here’s the link to the latest update on Xanga 2.0. For your convenience, however, I’ve cut and pasted the meat of his entry:
At this point, we are just a few thousand dollars short of raising $50,000! We can’t thank you all enough for your incredible support and bringing us so close to our target of $60k. I have decided that if we can reach $50,000 in total pledges, then I will personally put in the next $10,000 that we need to reach our target.
I spoke to Crowdhoster and they suggested that the easiest way to achieve this would be to lower the campaign target to $50,000. They also pointed out that if we wanted to, we could enable members to continue to pledge towards the campaign in August so that more Xangans could still migrate over to Xanga 2.0. At the current rate of funding, we are on track to hit $60k before the end of August – which is great. But we’d love to get started buying a bunch of additional servers before then, so my contribution should help get things moving asap! Since we will continue to have everyone’s data available in our networking facility through the end of August, leaving the campaign open for extra time made a lot of sense and we’ve gone ahead and enabled that.
I’m calling some serious sh*tnanegans on that right there because it totally contradicts what he said on Roadlesstaken’s radio show back on July 30, 2013:
A: If xanga does not raise money by deadline will it be pushed back?
J: Deadline is hard coded in software. Can’t ask Kickstarter to give more time. Confident we’re on track to meet goals.
Hmm…yeah, I guess you can’t ask for more time since they f*cking came up with the idea in the first place. And why is Crowdhoster even suggesting that you lower the campaign target? If you need $60K to get Xanga 2.0 off the ground, then you need $60K, right? It shouldn’t matter what Crowdhoster suggests. If it did, then why didn’t they just say, “$48K is pretty good. Mission accomplished!”? Would the goal have been decreased then? And since we’re already on the subject, now that the goal is $50K, why did you give us a month-long extension when all you need to raise is $2K?
ARGH! I’ve obviously got a LOT to say and draw about this, but I just wanted to put this up now because I want to know what you guys think. I loved Xanga–you all know I did–and I wanted so badly for it to be saved, but I’ve been skeptical of the Team’s intentions from the very beginning, and this sudden announcement on very last f*cking day of the fundraiser–literally 20 hours and 42 minutes before the deadline–is beyond ridiculous.
Oh, and I guess we’re supposed to be receiving an e-mail asking us if we want our blogs moved over to Xanga 2.0 or something. Given the stellar communication that’s gone on so far, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you because you’ll probably die of suffocation.
If you do get the e-mail, are you going to return to Xanga? I’m honestly not sure I could after this. I know Xanga 2.0 is apparently just WordPress Enterprise or whatever, so technically you wouldn’t be able to go back to Xanga even if you wanted to. I guess the better question is are you going to stay on WordPress-WordPress, or are you going to use Xanga-WordPress once it’s available?
absolutangel64 
I was really mad at first, but after I read their actual update it kind of waned. It’s not that they’re lowering the amount of money they need, it’s that John is supposedly donating $10,000 of his own money and the platform advised him to just lower the total amount in that case. Also, it was actually a result of that radio show that caused John to look into changing the deadline, which was when it went from the 15th to the end of July.
Cooler heads prevail, so I’m sure I’ll get over it too.
I agree that the communication has been troubling. I think part of the reason I was so mad at first was because I heard all of this through other people, but apparently the Xanga Team DID actually update and I just hadn’t seen it yet. Still, there’s still been, you know, the rest of the two months of not-really-communicating to take into account. My concern is that xanga 2.0 is going to launch and the Xanga Team is just going to be like “YAY!” and not really be committed in continuing to fight to stay alive. Because rallying the community and changing to a new platform won’t just solve all the problems. I want to be assured of their effort and commitment, really.
And I kind of wish that we had heard about the goal change thing (this last one) BEFORE it happened. I feel like that would have been more honest. But I’m kind of over that now, after mulling it over all day.
Are you going to use Xanga 2.0?
And I’ve got the same concerns about the Xanga Team not being fully committed to 2.0 as you do. But seeing as how Xanga 2.0 a WordPress-something (not sure what their relationship is exactly), maybe they’ll have some help keeping it afloat? I don’t know…I think I’ll need to see what happens before I make a hard decision on whether or not I’ll switch back.
Yeah, I’m going to use it. I already pledged and stuff, so I have nothing to lose at this point, right? I think that all xanga is doing is using the WordPress site-building engine or platform or whatever, so I don’t think that WordPress is going to be doing anything to help keep xanga afloat. And it’s not going to be the same as WordPress blogging, either – WP’s blogging and platforms are basically two completely separate things. Which, since I hate WordPress blogging, really works for me.
I’m not inclined to do so. For years, Xanga 1.0 fell further and further behind the features of other blogging platforms and the Xanga Team didn’t seem all that inclined to do anything about it. I’ve largely stopped blogging outside of random picture updates and commenting on other posts, so I have no real incentive to use the new version, ESPECIALLY if I have to pay for it. Call me cheap, but I had no problem with the ad-supported model. At this point, I’ve come to terms with Xanga going away and taking my archives with it.
As an aside, it might only be my screen, but the hash pattern behind this text makes things slightly difficult to read. Is there a way to emphasize the font?
Maybe I’m just getting old.
Haha…I am going make a wordpress blog and then I am going to call it Xanga…;-)
Why not? 😀
I should I think it would be hilarious…I would ask one controversial question a day and then answer it with my own blunt opinion
Who really knows how this will turn out. I’d like to hear how this new Plan is going to increase membership because with all the turmoil they are losing a lot of members and it was getting slow to begin with. I think it will take a few months to figure out if they have something viable. They do such a poor job of communication, and charging to blog seems like a poor strategy, but I enjoyed the Xanga community enough to give them a chance. Patience.
Hey you, I got your fb message about this but didn’t have time to reply (it’s been nuts lately in my life, legit) but Im just so confused. I didn’t pay for premium, haven’t gotten an email from them, don’t know what’s going on. It’s so weird. Honestly, this whole thing just reeks of poor organization rather than true malicious intent, I think, but still, I’m feeling that people are frustrated. It’s a lot of drama. Most of us have closed this book already. It’s kind of like taking Old Yeller out back and counting down, as tears stream down your face, to when you’re gonna shoot him in the face… then you do and you think it’s over… but he fucking starts spasming and flailing and you’re like “OMG NO, DON’T DO THIS” and you panic and empty the clip into him and…. wow this is dark.
I already ported everything over to Blogger, where my husband and I have a joint food blog, so at this point, it’s moot. I’ve already archived everything I could archive. It’s sad, but I agree that their “stellar” communication has really left me with a bad taste in my mouth and I want nothing to do with Xanga 2.0.
This entire “2.0” campaign has been a lesson in what “not” to do for an operation to be a success. It’s like they forgot all the rules of being successful marketers and thing that the “product” will make everything better regardless of how it comes to be.
What does that mean??? (I’m dense…)
LOL…basically, the US invades Iraq in mid March 2003. On May 1st 2003 George B gives the “Mission Accomplished” speech about the end of all major military operations in Iraq. Several thousand more US troops are deployed into Iraq and thousands die in the insurgency in the next 10 years.
I’m just making a comparison with the Xanga debacle and shot-gunning the end of the fundraiser with “good enough.”
I knew the significance of “Mission Accomplished” in terms of the invasion (not that dense…Hahahaha!), I just wasn’t sure how you were applying it to Xanga. But it makes perfect sense now. 😀
A social media site is like an artist or athlete. You have to know when to retire… preferably before it gets embarrassing.
Very true. Unfortunately, not very many people have the confidence to abide by that tenet.
This has caused some massive destruction. I doubt it will be the same again. I may go back if it’s easy to use and familiar. but if noone’s around, then I’m just blogging to myself might as well stay on wordpress. haha at least I know wordpress isn’t going anywhere for awhile.