In memoriam
Xanga
Born 1998. Died July 2013.
Xanga passed in July 2013, having lived fifteen years as the blog that felt like a journal. Born in 1998, it offered a page and a feed. Users wrote in public. At its peak it claimed millions of bloggers. The server lease was expensive. The company could not afford to renew. In May 2013 a fundraiser was launched: sixty thousand dollars by mid-July or the site would shut down. By July the campaign had raised sixty-three percent. The deadline was extended. The outcome is unclear. Some say it survived as Xanga 2.0. Some say it did not. He is survived by the memory of a time when the web had room for journals, and by the conviction that sometimes sixty thousand dollars is the difference between survival and silence.
We need $60,000 by mid-July or Xanga will shut down.
Ran out of money
Mourned by Those who blogged before Tumblr, users who journaled in public, and anyone who remembers when a blog could still feel like a diary.
The fundraiser, which raised sixty-three percent of what was needed; Xanga 2.0, which some say survived; and the memory of a time when the web had room for journals.