View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Thursday 16 October 2008

Community

A couple of notes on recent events. Not asking anyone to agree, but just my perspective.

AOL seems to be on auto self-destruct at the moment. Pulling journals and the FTP-space on Hometown will have alerted anyone who's a wee bit Internet savvy to avoid them like the plague. What do they have left? Chatrooms?? FGS, been there for a while, never again.

Well, AOL's loss is Google's gain. They are now hosting our journals, and although technically we'll have to get used to them, it's no really major issue. To be honest with you, I like it that I can see people's real (first) names and a portrait photograph in some cases. Yep, I don't show my face, but that's my decision. The people have not left, the provider has. The community remains and by virtue of the Internet it is supremely easy to stay in touch. Hence the cross-reference journal which I shall build in the near future. Famous last words.

I'll probably follow Indigo's advice and start reading new entries, rather than try to catch up with a backlog of a couple of weeks.

15 comments:

  1. Hi, Guido, good to see your posts. And yes, AOL is in self-destruct mode as they have moved their e-mail to Compuserve (ne'mind that they merged with CS a while back.) That was a transparent-to-user change that happened without any input from us. I'm begging to think I might want to move my e-mail to Gmail.
    ;^) Jan the Gryphon
    http://gryph-wotd.blogspot.com/
    formerly
    http://journals.aol.com/gryphondear/Gryphondears-Word-of-the-Day/

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  2. Well, if it is true that aol will no longer exist after January I suppose it is inevitable. What I think is bad is that they are still advertising blogs so to speak. How to make a blog and all that goes with it is still there. Someone could decide to start one! We still have no answers on how to transfer our blogs over as they should be. The whole thing is a shambles but the aol has been a shambles for the last couple of years. I wonder what else we have not been let in on.

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  3. I was wondering the other day...I have video clips loaded onto AOL video I wonder if those will be delted.

    AOL sure has let a lot of people down, I saw see ya and I am not looking back.

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  4. I think this move has been quite clearly on the cards for a long time now. The decision to move out of BB provision altogether and become a simple ad driven web portal meant all these things would in time go along eventually with the familiar client. I think it is big mistake but that is another matter. The word in the wings is that Yahoo will take over AOL.

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  5. Within the next week or so AOL will no longer be my ISP, journals is one thing but it's like wading through treacle, at the times when I do log on tthe site , I much prefer Firefox.

    Yasmin

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  6. I say jump in and read new!

    be well...

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  7. I went back and read a few entries, love your photo's especially that one with the rainbow. I think most of us brought our other blogs over only to archive them..not too many people will read four years of mundane ramblings (I mean myself) be well, Sandi

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  8. Hi Guido...I hope your keeping well.
    Your blog is looking good. I read last night that the AOL blogs will cease to exist from 30th October, so i transfered my AOL blogs to Blogger this evening, it is so easy to do. I've been trying to find out how to IM from Blogger, i tried to add the gadget, but it showed up error.My email address is still ASTRA1547@sky.com because i can't use the blogspot email for either send or receive as i set it to pop3 quite a while ago and i can't change it.
    Best wishes...Astra!

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  9. Your commentors bring up good points....for me, I am happy to be away from aol and have my other address ready and waiting...take care...Joyce

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  10. It is way to hard to try to go back and read weeks worth of journal entries. Just start with the most recent and keep going. I've had to do that.

    I am moving all my email to gmail. The sooner I can get all my things away from AOL the better.

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  11. AOL Journals is like a ghost town now. I described it the other day as rats deserting a sinking ship. Sad, but true.

    Beth

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  12. I agree with you 100% Guido... and I also have faith someday I will see that face :)
    hugs

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  13. I was delighted to see how quickly we all found each other this side of the blogsphere. It just goes to show it was never the format or server, rather the people that made it what it was. Without the people there is no heart or soul left in the ruins. (Hugs)Indigo

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  14. I think the passengers went into the lifeboats when the ship AOL Journals started to go down. We've now been rescued by MV Blogger lol

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  15. I am happy to have a fresh start and be rid of AOL. I enjoyed the J-Land community but we are still together and that is what made it special - not who was hosting it for us.

    Maybe one day you will surprise us all and sneak in a picture of yourself.

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