DESPERATION AND THAT '360' THING

After what was equatable to a riot happened on the Y!360 Team Blog when they announced 360 was closing, people started to panic and everyone practically launched into trying to save the Y!360 blogging platform. When it was apparent that wasn't happening, first a few people came to Multiply, and then more and more. By late October, about a week after the group was founded, we had a membership of over one hundred members. Well, here we are six months later with over 1900 members.

360 is a virtual wasteland. Very few of my contacts (I'd guestimate a dozen or two of over 90) are still active there. Most of the active ones are posting the same stuff both here and there. There is a vain effort going on to save 360, and the petition starter even started a 360 page to try and bolster support. It looks like they are a little late to the show, though, having only started the effort at the end of March. There's even been a startup at Ning.com called "180" that uses the catchphrase "Half The 360 Bullshit". Following their logic, if 360 is full of it, then 180 is still... half full of it? New motto: "Y!360 Refugees: None of the 360 Bullshit."

It's still kind of funny in a somewhat pathetic way, though. "180" has (drumroll) 85 members. Y!360 Refugees has just under 2000 members. Umm, yeah. The petition has 5600+ signatures. The problem with that, though, is that Yahoo! isn't going to listen. They are the number one ranked site on Alexa.com. 5600 signatures is nothing to them, what with millions and undoubtedly billions of daily users.

While the 360 Rumor Control still doesn't like Multiply, it seems that Yahoo! has managed to suck the gusto right out of some of their staunchest supporters. Their recent writings have a dejected aura to them. They've even changed their profile photo to a violin, ie, they (and the 360 community) have been "played". They again only have 198 friends with their cause.

With Yahoo! trying to reinvent themselves, launch new services, and fight off Microsoft, it's unlikely that anything is going to be done to 360 -- either to improve or termanate it -- let alone to try and get together a decent successor 360 and Mash (now it it's final death throes.)

I don't know what is to be said of this whole debacle, except I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad Multiply works so well. I'm glad it has a dedicated staff. I'm especially glad for this group.

Ze Baron