Goodbye to You, AOL J-Land
Wednesday, October 01, 2008, 6:06 PM



I received an email this morning from AOL Member Information:

We’re sorry to inform you that on Oct. 31, 2008, AOL® Journals will be shut down permanently. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Blah, blah, blah.

It makes me want to snarl about AOL all over again. Back in 1998 when I first signed on as an AOL customer, they were all about Community and I loved being an AOL member. A lot of good, memorable things came from AOL--I met a guy I later married, I became a Community Leader and Board Monitor for the Small Business Community, I drew freelance jobs (I used to be a desktop pubber/graphic designer) from people who read my board posts.


In 2004, I joined the brand new community of AOL Journals. It was such a small Community at the time that I was recognized and promoted for my Journal, lol, even when I didn't know about it. I found one of the graphics here, but I can't find the one where it was MY face splashed across the screen when it was my turn to be featured as a Journal pick. The graphic below came about when someone at AOL J-Land had the great idea to make people pick their favorite Journals out of five. Man, did that stir up trouble (I'm the third Journal listed, by the way, with a whopping 5 votes).

Yes, it's all about me. See?

In November of 2005, AOL decided to advertise on its Journals. Without letting its Journalers know...we all just woke up one morning, signed on and lo! There were Pizza Hut advertisement banners at the top of diet Journals, mortgage lender ad banners on the top of I'm broke and I want to die Journals...and you get the idea. After more than a year of being ad-free, and after what a lot of us saw as a sneak-attack and a damn crappy way to treat a member, some of us left.

I was one of those folks. It was hard to leave, too. I loved my AOL-J blog. Typing there felt like another home. I mourned my Journal, I really did. I couldn't delete it, either. Just couldn't.

But now AOL is going to delete it because they're doing away with J-Land. AOL hasn't been customer-oriented for a long time and they're proving that again in a big way. It might have been the end of a good ride for AOL in late 2005 or early 2006, but I think AOL is up for another rude ending now. I can't believe they're just going to shut down a blogging community, but I should...'cause I blew that town in late 2005, right after the stench hit the back of my throat.

Now I have to finally bite the bullet and save the rest of my entries. Frick.

RIP, J-Land.
16 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
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