Crud! Blogvoices is closing.

January 23, 2001 8:01 AM

Crud! Blogvoices is closing.
posted by Sean Meade (24 comments total)

Wow... there goes discussion on almost every blog I can think of. I always thought BV was a nice-enough tool.

["Blogger Pro! Blogger Pro!" the masses cried.]
posted by hijinx at 8:04 AM on January 23, 2001

*sigh* This is really bumming me out, everyone closing down, going out and such.

Blogvoices really did something nice, maybe blogger will adapt the technology? Hmm?
posted by tiaka at 8:05 AM on January 23, 2001

obi matt kenobi, we need your help.

im really bummed out too...i wonder if there is any chance that pyra would adopt blogvoices...

*wink, wink, nudge, nudge*
posted by will at 8:12 AM on January 23, 2001

I am sure the thought has crossed many a mind and made many an experienced web service provider cringe, but what about a coalition of interested parties getting together and instead of moaning about BlogVoices demise rather find a solution.

I know what you are going to say: "yeah smart ass *original* idea so why dont you do it?". But frankly I do not have the money or contacts to get this kind of thing going. I can spare the time and will happily help out wherever possible. Ill plan it if neccesary but lets do something ok?

Lets face it, Blogger Pro is still on the horizon and may be a bit on the expensive side (I live in South Africa, one dollar is made up of eight of my Rands, ouch!).

Drop me a line if you have any ideas, remember the source code is mentioned as being free to use. Lets use the damned stuff.
posted by rapidsa at 8:31 AM on January 23, 2001

right on. i'm in (though i don't have the $ or contacts, either.). i really like the Blogger adoption idea. we bought all of those new servers, right?
posted by Sean Meade at 8:44 AM on January 23, 2001

All these great technologies in danger of disappearing. We should start an Endangered Technologies List! Organizine, BlogVoices, heck, even DeepLeap! Can't they be rescued and cared for by the masses? Actually, I'll probably use Blogger Pro when it comes out, but I still think there ought to be a free comments solution. I think the problem was that Chris was hosting the entire comments database, which had probably broken bandwidth restrictions with his hosting service. Any solutions to that dilemma?
posted by jmcnally at 8:54 AM on January 23, 2001

And remember...once Chris makes up his mind about something, it's made up. He won't reconsider. That's just the way he is.

It reminds me of the Taxi episode...number 6, I think, where Bobby decides he's a failure because he gave himself 3 years to land an acting job. If he didn't do it in 3 years, he'd quit...and a promise to yourself is so important, don't you think?
posted by ivey at 9:21 AM on January 23, 2001

The solution is to create something that people can install and host themselves. The drawback is that it would likely have to be CGI based, (I'm trying to imagine how it wouldn't be) so that would make things hard on Blogger users without those capabilities.

I'd bet that a lot of people are going to take this as a good reason to make the switch to Greymatter, which has comments built into the functionality.
posted by Dreama at 9:22 AM on January 23, 2001

I'd just like to thank Chris for providing such a useful service for free, even though it was short lived.

posted by jkottke at 9:41 AM on January 23, 2001

I'd like to thank Chris in advance for opening up the source, too.

People will be able to host their own (if they're capable) and with it being open, hopefully people will create small BlogVoices servers, serving their friends and their friends friends.
posted by cCranium at 9:45 AM on January 23, 2001

CCranium, doesn't sound like a bad idea, maybe Chris would instead do a list, of all the participants running blogvoices on their own servers, 10 per server type of thing. This would encourage link-aige and such, and thus, get people to set it up on their own server.
posted by tiaka at 9:57 AM on January 23, 2001

Man I feel like an idiot for recommending HostRocket.com, when Chris was looking for a new host. I'd like to thank Chris for providing such a wonderful service.
posted by riffola at 10:11 AM on January 23, 2001

I'm with Jason - THANKS CHRIS!
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 10:46 AM on January 23, 2001

Speaking of independently hosted commenting services, does anyone use Sextant? Is it still in beta? I remember futzing around with it a little last spring, but I haven't seen anything substantially updated since. It looks promising, though.
posted by bradlands at 10:59 AM on January 23, 2001

How about a program that automatically looks for space on members' machines. I know I've got a couple dozen MB here and there that I'm not using. Is it possible to make something that can automatically find space for comments, and do it securely?
posted by jpoulos at 11:24 AM on January 23, 2001

I just tried posting via BlogVoices, it no longer has a field to type in. It seems to be shutting down HAL9000 like. Daisy, Daaaaaaaisseeyyyyy.

I will really miss this service. Thanks Chris. Is Chris a MeFi member?
posted by thirteen at 11:31 AM on January 23, 2001

I couldn't even find a terms of service at hostrocket.com -- which puts them off my recommended list. Was it a disk space or traffic issue?
posted by dhartung at 1:04 PM on January 23, 2001

I ran some tracert's on hostrocket over the weekend and they're tied into Alabanza.com and VDI.net. When you're dealing with a reseller the best thing to do is look at the TOS and AUP upstream irrespective of what the reseller tells you.
posted by xiffix at 3:03 PM on January 23, 2001

You can get Hostrocket's tos by sending them an email to [e-mail] or just view this copy on one of the admin's site.
posted by riffola at 4:37 PM on January 23, 2001

so, anyone know anything else that can be easily customised to work with blogger posts?
posted by will at 4:48 PM on January 23, 2001

Hello. I’ve spent all day trying to figure out what to say to everyone. First, I’d like to thank everyone who took a moment to drop me an email or post a comment here on MeFi voicing his or her support for my little project. Next, I’d like to thank those who have recommended alternate web hosting providers. Finally, I’d like to thank my mother, for whom, none if this would have been possible.

As stated in an update message, I am discussing the situation with a “friendly face” that may help salvage the service. Regardless of whether or not this works out, BlogVoices will continue to thrive as an open source project, free to anyone.

Stay tuned to www.blogvoices.com for the latest developments and again --- thank you so much for your support.

[Side note: PLEASE do not harass Hostrocket.com. Despite the situation, they have been very understanding and courteous]

Best regards,
You know who.

posted by chrish at 5:02 PM on January 23, 2001

I grew addicted to that little service. Thanks for giving us the capability to talk back and start little discussions on our sites -- added a new dimension to posting that can't be beat.
posted by evixir at 9:24 PM on January 23, 2001

i just want to jump in and also say thanks to chris for offering the service while it was there. hopefully something similar will show up in the near future - or i finally get my sites hosted where i can implement nifty things on the server instead of using free or really cheap hosts :)
posted by endorwitch at 1:06 AM on January 24, 2001