babyblog

Goodbye UKChat

UKChat, the chat site that I've run for the last 10 years has closed today. I can't help but feel sad, it's 10 years of my life gone.

We closed for many reasons but largely it was to do with my having this busy hectic life 8 hours and 5000 miles away. I haven't had the time nor energy to do anything with UKChat in months if not years and I've relied on other people to run it for me. That's OK to a point but ultimately I still have responsibility for it of course, which is always a nagging concern in the background.

We actually had worked on a redesign of the site, a new snazzy site more content driven and it looked GREAT. We were very close to the point where we'd be able to launch it, having nagged and pesterered at both Neil and Gareth for the last AGES to do that for me.

However, I came to the realisation that if we did launch the new site that I'd actually have to do alot of WORK on it, and I simply do not have that ability at the moment. Knowing I couldn't work on the new look, and knowing it needed a new look, led me to think that the best thing would be to close. It coudln't continue as is, and it couldn't continue as it should. I put this idea to G and Neil and they both (being extremely busy themselves) agreed.

There were other reasons for closing to do with what I felt was the future of sites like UKChat, sites which in todays internet are a bit old fashioned, and I've gone into those a little more on the UKChat homepage for anyone who is interested.

Funnily enough, having given notice with UKChat's ISP a couple of months ago, we received an email this week telling us that costs were going to DOUBLE. Had we not already been closing, we would have had no choice but to do so. I'm so glad we did it on our own terms, if only by the skin of our teeth.

Anyway - the last night was tonight. UKChat closed it's doors at midnight. It was amazing actually, there were hundreds of people online to say goodbye including all of the old faces from the years. I ended up feeling very emotional about it and shed a tear, which I didn't expect. It was 10 years of my life, I'll miss it.