I think this subject is a very good one, and I am very interested in it, where there have been so many sites, which people have put huge amounts of work into, which in many cases had times of luster and flattering popularity and relevance, and as opposed to those important sites which have been destroyed by corporate interests and anti-competitive practices, like big music download sites, there are so many sites like your own which were once cutting edge, and spawned and inspired so many other sites to follow.

I think there is much to be said about the experience of building a site or service of value, but which may not necessarily be lucrative or properly monetized, and perhaps experiencing times of relative growth and popularity and vibrance, only to experience the evolutionary nature of the internet and changing interests, and dropping traffic numbers, in contrast to the work it takes to keep it going, poised with the questions, has it’s time come and gone, and should it remain as a static museum, or should it be shut down, and laid to rest.

It is, in and of it’self, a great journey to build and run a site that one is really into, especially where it is well received and attended, it is an opus experience…   But in the modern internet, high traffic sites are largely bought up and consolidated by the big media companies, and access to such traffic (let alone for free), has become rare, and it was access to such mainstream strength traffic flows on par with the mass media which launched so many a site in the early days.

I think what pressed BoingBoing.net to the top was how the crew did -lot’s- of television reports between 2004 and 2007, and it was that mass media coverage that put it into orbit.

I think there are many other people who have a very similar story, who struggle now with the question of whether to keep going in a changing network environment that can bury a site as quickly as it brought it to great prominence, once upon a time.

Congratulations on your successful run!

Well, we all gripe over percieved errors, and forget we all make them too.  What’s the future of blogs? who knows, but be proud of what you’ve created.
that it’s had its day and gone? So do we all.

I was not a professional blogger and had no aspirations of becoming one. It was fun. I met a lot of great people and pissed off the legal departments at Double Click and Verisign.

Within a few years of inception browsers improved. People no longer needed to tweek their HOSTS file or bake their own cookies to foil pesky advertisers—the niche I developed for began to dissolve. I got to shutter the doors and hang up a Gone Fishing sign and I did so with gratitude for the good times I had.

There will always be vertical markets and they always evolve or collapse into a rubble of memories.

Good luck in your new endeavors.

That or I suck. Leaning more toward suck.

I’m reminded of “The Night Journey” — a game designed by Tracy Fullerton and Bill Viola. Instead of a quick death, the player may wander in a protracted period of settling darkness, and continue to make explorations and discoveries.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL1_twK2NDc

–EC Brown

The first dedicated gadget blog I remember is http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/ — running since the mid-1990s!