January 28, 2014

There and Back Again


                                                                                                                 
Waiting on the jetty, 1980.  Photo C CA.

I’ve moved a lot of times over the years.  I haven’t always liked moving, and when I find a home I like to settle in.  Oh, I love traveling, but I like coming home to the same place.  I really like rearranging my home too.  I’ve changed the looks of my home often with color, moving the furniture, fussing too.  Still it’s the same home.

Now I’m moving again.  Packing it all up, and moving to a new home….a new blog site.

I began blogging on Wordpress umpteen years ago.  It was too complicated for this new-to-computers person.  I tried a few more then found Open Diary.  I could post there daily with some degree of simplicity.  Oh, I tried the fancy borders and backgrounds that the DiaryMaster offered, but I found simplicity was best.  Black letters on a white background with a picture.  That picture was important.  And I made some wonderful friends there.  Family and friends joined me and created their own pages:  How I miss Cosmom and Cosmo, Blather, and Marion B among them.

Yesterday the DiaryMaster announced that:  “It is with a heavy heart that I am announcing today that we will be discontinuing service on OD in the next week. Over the last fifteen years, Open Diary became the first social network to grow on the web, and was home to many thousands of talented writers and bloggers – many of whom became like family to each other.

We showed the world that the internet could be a human place.

…Unfortunately, the business of OD has reached a point where the site is no longer sustainable. I’ve never made it a secret that this site has been run by me with the help of some fantastic volunteers, and there’s not some large corporation with deep pockets behind it.  As such, it is a business that could only operate as long as it made enough money to cover its expenses.

This journey has reached a point where we have to accept that this is no longer the case, and OD will have to cease operations.”

So I am moving.  My primary blog will be Postcards on blogger.  I like it here.  I really like the people I’ve met here, and here I stay.  I’ll back up things on “Prosebox.net” created by one of the dedicated OD volunteers: EWS.  Many of my friends, friends from parts of the world I may never visit, are using Prosebox.  I will truly miss those who stop blogging when OD closes, but I wish them marvelous new lives.  I’m waving.

Goodbye Open Diary.  You were a wonderful, comfortable home for a great many years.  I’m waving at the DiaryMaster too. 


6 comments:

  1. You scared me for a moment...

    Oh, and welcome home. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Although the end of a valued feature of your creative life is sad, I am thankful you found a new home in blogger neighborhoods that I visit. You contribute to the good reads, visual pleasures, helpful information, inspiration and encouragement.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just keep coming back where I can find you. I would be to sad for words if you ever went away!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Glad to know you will still be writing here. I love reading your posts and only am sorry I can not comment more often. I read my feedly feeds while traveling back and forth to various jobs. Thanks Mage for all your reflections.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I started with Blogger and have not back it up at all! I should at least print out some of these posts for my own posterity, although who knows what great grand-child would read them?? Why do you use the other software as well?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Awww... it's sad when the big guys (Blogger/Wordpress) swallow up the little guys like Open Diary. I know it was a very popular venue for early bloggers.. long before my blogging time. I'm sorry that you have to lose your other platform and I'm grateful for the early blogging pioneers such as yourself, and the arenas which hosted them, such as OD.

    ReplyDelete

postcards

Celebration of Life