I went to BlogShares a moment ago, and found an unkind, but not unexpected message. The beginning, I guess, says it all. Read the more for the complete text(for posterity sake) and remember that for a time this game was the funnest thing for a lot of people. I met some great friends through it, and will fondly remember what Seyed did, this experiment he tried on the whole of the Internet, and hope that one day I shall find another free game that will introduce me to so many excellent people, those who I would trust the advice of beyond most others, and who I would trust me deepest worries and thoughts to. If I am forced to list the things I have lost or gained from this game, memories and friends are those which I have gained, and time is all I lost, and it was time well spent.
"BlogShares - Closed Down
Dear BlogShares players,
I am sorry to announce that BlogShares will not be reopening after the current technical difficulties are resolved. Currently, the database server is dead and looks to be for the next few days.
The latest system crash has highlighted to me that deliverying a fun, useful service for the BlogShares community requires an active operator and developer. As most of you are no doubt aware I've been neither for the past couple of months. That has led to a decline of quality service, new features and ultimately income for the site and it looked likely that there wouldn't be enough to pay for next month's hosting.
It's been an interesting and very rewarding nine months bringing a bit of entertainment to bloggers (and blog lovers). I'd like to thank especially all those people who donated money or their valuable time, those who became premium subscribers, those who worked on cool toys which made use of the fledgling API and all those who could be found on the forums and IRC channel. You turned a silly fun idea of a mad monkey coder in London into something worthy of the attention by thousands of bloggers and the press.
A special mention goes to Greg, Jay, Erika, Joe, Aine, James, Ashes, Morgaine, Patrick and Rob.
My goal with the project was always to embrace the power law and to provide a new way of highlighting blogs with a little bit of fun. I've been pleasantly surprised of how well it did and stupefied it did it for so long. Now, however, it is time to move on to other things. I'm sure you'll be hearing from me in the not so distant future. You can also find me at my perpetual home: monkeyx.com.
All the best,
Time well spent indeed :)