October 5, 2014

• A Xanga Proposal

  I've been thinking about the 6 month free subscription that the Xanga team is extending to those who paid. After looking at this for a while, I can't justify the $48/yr subscription anymore. Most people just want to blog for free like before. Yes, helping and supporting the site will get you a free subscription, but not everyone can do that.

  Old Xanga premiums were $25 per year. $48 is pretty steep, no matter how you spin, even if you say that's just $4 per month (a cup of coffee per month). The difference between what we have in old xanga is that when I chose to get premium, all the premium functionality, as promised, are already there. All we have right now is a bare bones version of WordPress. A year went by and the only updates I saw were so minimal and barely noticeable.

  I also understand that they don't have ads for 2.0 this time around. That means subscription money is the only thing keeping them afloat. If they must put ads, I don't really mind it. If it helps to drive down the costs of servers and website upkeep, I don't mind. But that's another problem that I think the Xanga team don't want to have to worry about, especially when they only have 4-6 people managing the site (that's just my estimate, give or take 2 people).

  Because of my background in IT (and my current job, and the many roles I've been a part of for the past 5 years), I can say with a degree of certainty that the Xanga Team is practically doing all of this for free. Most of the cost from the subscriptions go to server upkeep and the developer(s) they hired. Whatever's left is not enough to make a living, especially in New York City. (Note: Just don't take my word from it, but know that I have no intention or stake in this to deceive).

  I am disappointed by what we have right now. However, rather than bitch about it, I have some compromises that would help the site and keep the cost lower for the users (possibly free).

  ---

  First off, let's just get one thing straight: NOTHING WAS EVER FREE!!! This was always true with Old Xanga. Xanga Classic Users were limited to 200MB of free space to upload pictures. They get a maximum of three profile pictures. Premium allows 99 profile pictures and 2GB of photo storage. Premium Plus gets you unlimited photo storage.

  Well, it's 2014. Storage is relatively cheaper than they were before. There are many free-picture hosting websites like IMGUR, FLICKR and storing your photos in Facebook or Google account (Picasa, etc). Excluding Facebook, these services have tiered services that increase storage capacity with a subscription. And if you like videos, there's YouTube, Vimeo and others. Right now, those who paid $48 have 10GB of storage. You know how much I've used so far? 11.56MB.

  I also have a WordPress.com blog as a free user. I've had it for year (around the same time My Xanga 2.0 blog went live). Free users at WordPress get 3GB (3,072MB) of storage. I've only used 14.36MB. Storage is almost a non-issue. HOWEVER, if you must store your photos/videos in Xanga and you take lots of photos, you have to pay extra to be able to store more media (photos, videos, etc).

  I understand that allowing free blogs leaves room for spam and double accounts to troll people (you know who you are, you fuckers). That's why I understand the need for a yearly subscription. However, $48 is really steep. So here are my first two proposals to keep cost down.

  Proposal #1: For the time being, give every user who didn't pay $48 the ability to blog with less functionality and limited storage for a small fee.

  Let's only keep the existing users. We'll worry about allowing new users when we're already at a stable and manageable circumstance. To stay for an additional year, let's drop the yearly subscription fee to same fee we used to pay in Old Xanga Premiums ($25).

  The text that users generate is so small that it doesn't even cost most websites. If users really need additional storage, this gives us the next proposal.

  Proposal #2: Have users pay for storage and/or a monthly premium for additional storage, increase their monthly upload cap and others.

  This requires that premium features are in place. This better be worth it.

  To keep the cost down, I think ads on Xanga is unavoidable. I think if the Xanga Team really pleaded their case and circumstance with the user community, they will understand and keep ads in place. So here's my next proposal.

  Proposal #3: Have the users agree to allow non-invasive ads on the website. (ONLY NON-INVASIVE ADS)

  That means users shouldn't have ad-blockers installed in their browsers. If they do, they won't be able to view their blogs. This is one of those things that are just unavoidable. If users must use ad-blockers, make an exception and disable it for Xanga.

  Some will say "Well, on WordPress I can blog for free and they don't block my blog if I have ad-blocker." The thing is, WordPress.com is a huge website that allows individuals and companies to market their website on the Internet for a monthly fee. Many websites on the Internet are powered by WordPress (.org) and WordPress.com. The money that WordPress.com has generated from these websites is used to subsidize and allow free blogging with 3GB free storage. Xanga is not at that level. Maybe back then, but not right now. The Xanga Team's objective is to keep the existing community.

  Speaking of the community, I know that many of them are entrepreneurs or want to market their website online. They could use Xanga to advertise for a small fee.

  Proposal #4: Have users advertise their store, product, etc throughout Xanga users' pages.

  This is another way of helping keep the cost down.

  I can't think of anything else right now, but these are just the ones I have. From a blogger's perspective, besides the people who always start shit, you know who you are (Malaysian Mafia, etc), there was nothing wrong with Old Xanga. The thing is, it was already dying out. Only a very small number of people still continued to blog and have made online friendships. Others were blogging away in their own groups outside the Top Blogs crowd. Others used it as their sanctuary in their lonesome. It's really unfair for them and they will be left out.

  I feel that my proposal should be taken into consideration. It's part rambling, but I made them with the best of intentions.

  I'm done.

  • 2:00 am
  • 5 Comments