Berin Kinsman, aka UncleBear, has shuttered the RolePlayMedia Network. The site was a community for RPG bloggers, pocasters, YouTube hosts and their audience. The goal of the network was to be more than an aggregator of feeds – to be a community.
The network was powered by Ning and while neither this blogger nor this blog was a member I will speculate that changes – such as Ning’s introduction of fees – played a significant role in the site’s decline. On April 17th back in 2010, Kinsman posted to say that he was looking for user donations whether someone with deeper pockets wanted to pick up the site.
There was suggestions that SamProof, one of the admins at RPM.net would be taking over and migrating the site to a completely different platform. That deal seems to have fallen through though, the announcement post deleted and Kinsman now urges his audience to disreguard the message.
There seems to some concern about what might happen to people’s personal data. I scratch my head at that. Who would enter personal data to a social network that they didn’t want to share? I think it illustrates the challenges that RPG communities face; gamers are a weird bunch at times. I know. I’m one!
In short: due to low traffic and the costs associated with using Ning, I made the decision to close it down and sent out a message to subscribers announcing that May 1st would be the end. At the 11th hour, Sam Proof stepped up and offered to take over. However, there were concerns regarding keeping user data (usernames and passwords) secure in the transfer from Ning to another server. So, it’s now May 2nd and the shutdown continued as scheduled. The end.
Thanks for the clarity. I can see how it would have been a tough call but I think this is the wise choice.