New Feature - Photo Contest (for monthly photo of the day threads)

[Clix Pix]

Well, it's the internet, time moves on and things change.....and not always for the better. Today I learned that a website where I've hung out for a really long time -- since May, 2005 -- is undergoing another change of ownership, and this time, unlike the others, where an individual owner was always at the helm, the new owner is a corporation, a rather large one, so I suspect that the previous warmth and sense of family that has always been present at that site will be disappearing over time, as a corporate entity just is not going to have the same level of interest and hands-on participation that a site owned by an individual does. While right now some stranger, an assigned employee from the new owner's company is assuring us that things will pretty much remain the same, although of course they will be needing to implement a few changes after a while, it isn't too hard to figure out that sooner or later the current admins and mods are more than likely going to have their own issues with the new, more impersonal leadership and that members will not be thrilled with some of the changes come down the pike. This is really very upsetting news for members of that forum, to say the least. The announcement came out a couple of hours ago and members are still absorbing the news.

At least with MR we still know the cast of characters, and who the owner is, an individual who is genuinely interested in and concerned about his site (and who is the same owner since Day 1) -- and that does mean something, even when the owner and/or his admins/mods do something with which members disagree.

 

[Eric]

Well, it's the internet, time moves on and things change.....and not always for the better. Today I learned that a website where I've hung out for a really long time -- since May, 2005 -- is undergoing another change of ownership, and this time, unlike the others, where an individual owner was always at the helm, the new owner is a corporation, a rather large one, so I suspect that the previous warmth and sense of family that has always been present at that site will be disappearing over time, as a corporate entity just is not going to have the same level of interest and hands-on participation that a site owned by an individual does. While right now some stranger, an assigned employee from the new owner's company is assuring us that things will pretty much remain the same, although of course they will be needing to implement a few changes after a while, it isn't too hard to figure out that sooner or later the current admins and mods are more than likely going to have their own issues with the new, more impersonal leadership and that members will not be thrilled with some of the changes come down the pike. This is really very upsetting news for members of that forum, to say the least. The announcement came out a couple of hours ago and members are still absorbing the news.

At least with MR we still know the cast of characters, and who the owner is, an individual who is genuinely interested in and concerned about his site (and who is the same owner since Day 1) -- and that does mean something, even when the owner and/or his admins/mods do something with which members disagree.

Feel free to invite some of them over here, especially if it's photography related.

I once sold a musician related site I had under the same circumstances you mentioned above, although to their credit they did ask me to remain on as an administrator because they didn't want to rock the boat too much, I turned that down. Still, users do not like a change in ownership much, a lot of the base became less active and dropped and now it's a ghost town which is a shame.

 

[Clix Pix]

This particular site has undergone a few changes in ownership over the years...... One of the two original founders died and after a few years of trying to manage everything on his own (with the help of trusted additional admins and mods) plus deal with his growing business, and in addition deal with his growing family as well, the other founder/owner eventually sold the site to someone who had been a long-time member, so that didn't seem so bad, although there were some early unsettling changes. We knew the guy so we accepted the abruptness and nature of the changes. It was his personality and his way of approaching things. We knew him, we knew that. We adjusted.

Then after a while that guy became overwhelmed with his own life issues and sold to another guy -- this time, a stranger, who although interested in photography, was not someone who had been a long-time member and so in the beginning was viewed with suspicion but after a while seemed to be OK.....but, yeah, now, in the end he was the one who sold the site (plus a couple of others that he also owned) to this corporation. He just became too busy with his own life and work concerns and we had already noticed that he wasn't around much any more, so in some ways this announcement today wasn't a big surprise while in other ways it was. I'm still grappling with this on various levels: emotional/sentimental and also trying to be realistic in terms of today's current internet environment, to be honest. I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm worried about the future of that site...... In one way this changeover in ownership feels like a betrayal and yet in other ways I think most of us can totally understand his need to move on from owning websites, as both his personal and work life of course need to take precedence, and given his career, this past two years in particular have been more than challenging.

I'm not ready to look ahead very far, I'm still running through the site's past history in my mind and reliving fond memories...... We will see over the next few months or so what happens with the new corporate owners/impersonal supervision by various employees as they implement changes and/or issues need to be resolved. Right now the current Admins/Mods team is still intact, or at least it was last I looked, but I will not be surprised if that changes fairly soon.

I am definitely not optimistic about the future of the site and that is heartbreaking.