The CEO of 8020, the publishing company of JPGMag, has finally responded. I am glad that he stepped up and is beginning to interact with his community, but it is too late for me.
To use a different company as an example let's talk about Flickr. Every once in a while I wonder about the time I spend on Flickr. Flickr was not my first online photo community, and it was not the first way I shared photos with people so I'm not quite as zealous as other people are in regards to the site. I limit my contacts and groups and sometimes I go through and weed out the same. I don't join every group that asks and I'm generally in only one group per subject. There is no reason, at least to me, to be in 15 different groups about flowers (Canon and Houston are the exceptions).
So when Flickr has blow ups like the old school controversy (old members having to sign in through Yahoo) or the photo removal which I previously mentioned, I watch from a distance. I'm always curious whether it will push me away from Flickr. But every time one of these things happened, Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr, has stepped in within a day, many times within hours, to address the situation. During the old school dust up he and many from the Flickr staff were in that thread taking the heat, responding to questions, trying to be as honest and upfront as possible. And when they make a mistake, they admit it without that particular speak that is meant to sort of accept blame, but only in the most vague terms as possible.
That is what keeps me here and makes me a bigger fan of Flickr every day. Every single time, Stewart and company have impressed me with their willingness to listen to the community. Even though they are owned by Yahoo, they are still there in the trenches and they are willing to talk to their users. Those are the type of groups I want to spend my time with, because there are so only so many different communities I have time to be a part of. And I think that is why I probably will not go back to JPGMag. Who knows, maybe a year or so from now, I will feel differently. But I enjoyed that Heather and Derek were still heavily involved. In fact I didn't realize that that much had changed. I thought it was just a format/publication change and I thought they were still making the final decisions about what went into the magazine. Now that I know that isn't true, it isn't the same thing to me.
So I'm glad that the CEO has stepped up and I hope he can right the ship again. I'm sure the magazine will be going strong in no time because new people will always sign up who don't know about this blip in time. But for me it is time to move on.
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