I want to say a lot more than what I'm going to end up saying in this post, but cutting a long story short, lets get together on this thread and chat.
I've now officially taken over the responsibility of running and management of Moblog. That's kinda been the case for a year now, but it's wasn't "official" so to speak. The old company has been discontinued and we've used the remaining cash to pay for hosting for Moblog for one year - which will take us into December 2014.
Putting all my cards on the table, it costs around 2200 GBP a year (roughly $3700) to keep Moblog running at it's current level. This is not a huge amount of money for a business to carry, but it's not insignificant either as an individual to carry.
After a lot of consideration, the verdict has been that my new company cannot shoulder this burden. So, if I want to keep moblog running, I have to work out how to fund it myself.
Nonetheless, this is genuinely not a worry for me because I really believe Moblog can carry it's own weight. I mean it basically already does and has survived a long time from donations from site members.
I hate to sound cheesy, but it's you guys who have kept funding the site! Some of you are still paying subscription payments to support the site. Thank you.
All that money goes into a pay pal account that doesn't pay into any personal or commercial bank account. Going forward, it makes sense to keep that running as normal and use the funds raised to pay for Moblog's hosting costs each year.
However, longevity is not a sign of direction! And that's what I really want to chat to you guys about.
It's time to set a good direction. By good direction, I mean a sustainable direction that makes sense, has focus and doesn't try to do too much or too little.
I don't mean a new direction. From one to one conversations with many of you over Skype, it's become clear to me that Moblog does not have to try and be the "new new thing." In fact, it could just stick as being the old thing and it will probably do just fine.
Nonetheless, it also cannot just remain static either. The whole site design needs a refresh and we need to trim the fat. There's a lot of features which are broken or redundant now - or not being used in the best way.
As with all tech, any update requires coding which requires volunteers or paid workers. There is absolutely tonnes of goodwill out there that we can probably crowdsource 90% of what we need to do. And if we can't, I have every confidence that we can raise the money to get what we need to do, done.
In my mind's eye, I imagine that Moblog will go beyond self funding it's own hosting to crowdfunding its own development - with stretch goals and incentives like you see on IndieGogo or Kickstarter.
But, whilst all of the above is well and good, none of it means anything if we don't know where we want to go.
So, if you're still reading this then I'm asking you - where do you want Moblog to go?
I have some ideas which I will share with you in the comments. But here's a couple to get your brains working: (in no particular order)
1. We could make Moblog a social network owned and operated by the users. Like a Co-op. This would be a long term plan and take a non trivial amount of community organization.
2. We could just refresh the design now - change the colours, get a new logo, build a new theme library. This is a short term idea that would take a non-trivial but easily doable amount of resources and planning.
3. We could editorialize all of the groups we currently have. Become a crowdsourced magazine. (Incidentally we also have
photoblogging.org as a domain)
4. We could run photography courses.
5. We could start rethinking the current tech on the site and put it to better use - for instance, there is no reason why 'tags' couldn't operate in the same way as hashtags on Twitter or Facebook.
What's the change you want to see? Where's the quickest win you think we can make? What keeps you interested? What's worth your monthly subscription?
Over to you. Let rip. Be brutal if you need to be. "Tonight we cancel the apocalypse!" Oh wait, I'm getting carried away now :)