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I Wish They Hadn’t Sold
- Posted By: Mubashar
- In: Industry News
- On: May 18th, 2008
Yes this blog is about the buying and selling of domains and websites, and it is a natural thing for websites to change hands. Peoples interests change, situations change, and people sell and move on to other things.
As a visitor to some of these websites, there are a few that I wish had not been sold, they changed so dramatically after the sale that I and many other loyal users abandoned them. This is in no way meant be disrespectful to the new owners. A website is often a reflection of the personality of the person running it and after a sale the personalities sometimes just don’t mesh anymore.
Without further ado, here is my list of sites that I wish had not been sold…
CSS Reboot
cssreboot.comCSSReboot was a premiere community for web designer, who would gather twice each year and collectively reboot their websites to make use of CSS.
The CSSReboot event took place in May 2005, and site was sold in June of 2006.
Unfortunately since the sale the new owner has had difficulty keeping the event going and the website has devolved to a web design gallery that has not been updated in months.
Stylegala
stylegala.comA premiere Web Design gallery and community has not maintained its quality content and vibrant forum community since its sale in June 2006.
CSSVault
cssvault.comAnother CSS gallery, one of the first started by Paul Scrivens (of 9rules fame) in 2004, was sold in January 2005, and resold in 2007, now owned by HostGator. After the sales the site lost its persona and much of its following.
WPDesigner
wpdesigner.comWPDesigner was a great place for designers and developers building websites using Wordpress, but since its sale in March of this year, there have been no updates to the website, one that used to update many times a week. I hope its just a temporary delay as the new owner settles in.
YoungGoGetter
younggogetter.comThis one makes my list despite the fact that I’m still active at YoungGoGetter, the new owners are doing a good job of maintaining the blog and forum, probably due to the fact that the new owner was a member of the forum before making the purchase. However, the previous owners where such a great group of individuals I wish they were still around and more active in the community than they currently are.
What sites are on your list?
May 18th, 2008 at 3:06 am
I’m both honored and saddened to make the list, Mubs. I appreciate the kind words immensely, though, thank you. I’m sure I speak on Travis’ behalf as well.
May 18th, 2008 at 6:36 am
I certainly agree with you on the WPDesigner part. I can only imagine it will become even more commerical now; As the new owner tries to recoup his investment.
Another site I feel should be on the list is NetBusinessBlog.
Whilst the articles being published nowadays aren’t bad; They certainly don’t live up to the high standards that Matt set whilst he owned it.
May 18th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I agree with Gary on NBB, however; he made the right personal decision to sell the site. He had a nice payday for relatively little work (if you consider the payoff). It was hard for me to sell YGG, it was a pet project for over 3 years but…sometimes you just have to move on, pass the torch and hope for the best.
May 18th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I was a big fan of Stylegala, haven’t been there in a while because it went so down-hill.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:46 am
I also hope WPDesigner will be back. I kept the RSS subscription and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
P.S. There’s a typo in the YGG link.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:14 am
@Eric: It was a tough decision including YGG, but I think the work you guys had done building up the community warranted it.
@Gary: Agree with you on the NetBusinessBlog. I usually find that when a single owner is replaced with a group of publisher the site tends to lose is cohesiveness, not that having multiple contributers is a bad thing, but the contrast from a single dominating personality takes some getting used too.
@Adrian: It’s in my feed reader too. YGG typo fixed. Thx.
May 19th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Well this week I have a new design site coming out that should make up for the drop in quality of the design sites listed above and is a much better resource than anything out there I think. Was said to see CSSVault drop off so much, but with so many galleries out today something new needs to be done.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
CSS Vault dropped off? It is finally being updated daily after years of neglect … including when under Scrivs.
The RSS feed for the gallery has over 20,000 subscribers, and has grown over 50% in the last year.