Hosting Service Closes 3000 Blogs Without Notice

marmoset writes "Citing the high costs of running the free service, performance concerns, and health problems, Dave Winer closed down the weblogs.com hosting service without any prior notice. As many as 3000 sites are now inacessible, and the users who want to transfer their data elsewhere have to ask (politely) for it to be exported. As might be expected, reactions range from understanding to enraged. Netcraft has a report, too."

Not a Troll (for once...)

[imadork]

So, netcraft confirmed that *weblogs are dying?

Blogs

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought blogs were blobs anyways.

Crystal Ball

[Anonymous Coward]

I can forsee quite a few people complaining about this in their weblogs.

Oh...wait...

And this is bad news?

[jm92956n]

I just saw this over at Halley's place and went to Tom's blog and read Dave's post on Tom's private weblog. Tom is traveling back from Mexico, not sure if he's landed yet, but I doubt that the first thing on his mind is how hard Dave Winer wants his old Manilla users to blow him in this special "one-time" offer.

Good riddance! I don't understand how one could possibly read such crap.

I scratched my nose a little and then depressed the 'W' key, knowing full well the corresponding character would henceforth be displayed in its full glory!

Ironic

[shadowmatter]

Having your blogging service totally shut you out without notice finally seems like the perfect thing to blog about.

- sm

3000 bloggers

[loid_void]

...being found guilty, I sentence you to a public blogging.

You know what they say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus saves and backs up nightly!

I feel a disturbance in the force.

[hayden]

It's as though a couple of thousand babbling idiots were suddenly silenced.

Not just *any* blog host

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just any Blog Hosting Service.

Dave Winer's blog hosting service.

Coool!

Re:Wired article

[skaffen42]

From the Wired article: "I just have my fingers crossed that my girlfriend gets her blog back," said software programmer Tom Gortell. "She feels like someone just sucked out her brains. I don't get it, it's just an online journal, right? But she feels like her entire life has been stolen."

The guy works as a programmer and he never told her to make backups? And then he tells Wired that he doesn't get why she is upset. Somebody better e-mail him the number of a good florist.

But seriously, he should have told her to make backups. Free service. You get what you pay for. What more can you say?

Thankfully not LiveJournal

[Anonymous Coward]

At least LiveJournal didn't shut down without notice. Otherwise we'd all be up tonight digging mass graves for disfranchised teenagers all over the world.

understanding

[sewagemaster]

As might be expected, reactions range from understanding to enraged.

and we shall show our "understanding" by having their site posted and slashdotting their site...

Wrong.

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

It's as though a couple of thousand babbling idiots were suddenly silenced.

No no, Slashdot is still up. :P

Re:Did a blog kill your mom or something?

[Dun Malg]

talking about their latest dream with N'Sync and a pony

I have the n'sync-with-a-pony dream all the time. I should start a blog about it.

Re:Not any more then normal traffic really..

[Just Some Guy]

they could have shut down the sites but allowed the owners of the blogs to grab the data. It would probably have been less traffic in the few days before shutdown then normal traffic.

These are blogs. The owners are the ones reading them.

Locking out the owners and only allowing guests would probably cut the bandwidth usage by about 95%.

I feel a disturbance in the force.-Congress.

[Anonymous Coward]

" It's as though a couple of thousand babbling idiots were suddenly silenced."

Congress gets hit by a meteor.

Re:To all saying users should backup their blogs..

[Anonymous Coward]

the typical masturbatory grousing

Dude - you have bird porn on your blog?

Those masturbating grouse are really cool man!

Re:Did a blog kill your mom or something?

[katsushiro]

Cute, but no cigar. I actually own my own domain, pay for my own webhosting, installed my own weblog software, and manage it myself (with daily backups). I also pay for my own bandwith, which is part of why I feel little need to point the ravening hordes of /. at it. Frankly, it's nothing but a personal sit eof no interest to anyone but me and my friends, full of things like 'LOL, Van Helsing was the worst movie I've seen in ages! You *have* to buy me the DVD!', and 'Oooh, this shiny new gadget came out, I lust after it.'. If you're not allready among the small crowd who stops by there once a week or so to see if I'm still alive, I doubt you'd have any interest in it. Ergo, no linky. I *do* take offense with the people who try to ram their blog down everyone's throats. I don't care about your fluffy kitty, and you don't care about my 'review' of Bubba Ho-Tep, so I don't read your stuff, and you don't read mine. The web's a big place, pick your content. What I take issue with is the attitude many folks cop about blogs, when, really, no one is hijacking your freakin' browser and forcing you to read about what I had for breakfast. And if you do accidentally stumble across it, hey, your browser has all these nifty buttons, like the bookmark list, the back button, even a full address bar! So many ways to escape from the horrible tedium of my rambling! Go for it!

Oh, and just as an aside, yeah, my username's real common, Mr. or Ms. 'geek4ever'. Real smooth of you to notice... say, you ever hear the story about the Pot? Seems he called the Kettle black.

Re:Ironic

[Rolo Tomasi]

Blog to the hand, cause the server ain't listening.

wrong

[That's Unpossible!]

I don't understand the level of hostility against blogs. No one's putting a gun to your head and making you read them.

Apparantly you haven't tried to use Google lately.

Re:Thankfully not LiveJournal

[mlk]

Doesn't an N Sync CD cost about $25?

Last I checked, buying an N Sync CD would cost you your soul.
And your pride if anyone ever found out.

Re:Choice quotes from the wired article

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe people wouldn't be angry at him if he mentioned the details of these extenuating circumstances, but then again why should he publish the personal details of his life?

There's a blogging joke here somewhere but I just can't find it, dammit.

Re:Backups

[ziggy_zero]

The real question is, where are bloggers going to go to whine about this????

Mom, 54, bored to death by blogging

[Zhe Mappel]

I know most blogs are, indeed, just self-centered rambling, or 15 year old girls talking about their latest dream with N'Sync and a pony

That's an unnecessary "or."

Re:Backups

[mopslik]

Suppose I've got terabytes of data...

Well, in that case you shoulda kept it on floppies or something.

Please insert disk 457,982,221,010 of 695,763,100,218 to continue...

Re:Backups

[l810c]

The real question is, where are bloggers going to go to whine about this????

Slashdot?

The site does seem kinda slow from the Whiney Blogger effect.

Someone's got to say it...

[sirReal.83.]

Hosting Service Closes 3000 Blogs Without Notice

You're damn right no one noticed...

... Zing!

Yes, blogs do have their uses - say, group collaboration. FLOSS. But there are a fascinating number of them that are just self-important rant-books with no real direction.

Re:TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to run a business but it began to eat into my "judge people on Slashdot" time.

Re:Wired article

[GileadGreene]

Some bloggers are screaming that the shutdown is a serial "blog murder."

Seems more like parallel murder to me, since it all happened at once...

Re:TOS

[Anonymous Coward]

You must really suck at using Google. I've never ended up on a blog while looking for something else...

Re:New Word Coined!

[Gilmoure]

Pogs are over? Oh man!

Upgradeable too

[Stevyn]

When dealing with audio blogs narrated, you can write it as "oggs"