Xanga Close to Shutdown, Launches Fundraiser

By Gilbert Falso :: 4:24 PM

Xanga, one of the original blogging and journal websites that launched in the late 90s, is facing a shutdown in July, unless it can cobble together about $60,000 from an online fundraiser it has established.

Facing an expiring lease on its networking facility, Xanga co-founder John Hiler outlined a plan to save the site and its content, from being turned off at the end of the lease. Hiler plans to migrate the Xanga backend to a Word-Press compatible structure, and hopes to keep the Xanga community intact when this happens.

By raising the funds and through the donation of Hiler’s time, he hopes to, “find a way to port Xanga to open source blogging software like WordPress, and reinvent the site together with the community.”

The $60,000 influx of cash would help to cover the setup costs for new hardware at a new hosting facility, pay for programmers to get the new site up and running, and cover day-to-day site costs for a time.

Fundraising for a new Xanga is taking the place of memberships in the new site. For a $48 donation, users will receive a year-long membership for blogging on the new site. Since the new site will be completely paid, “we wouldn’t have any ads on the blogs,” said Hiler.

With a paid model, Hiler says users would see the following features: custom themes, plugins, group blogging capabilities, threaded comments, and spam and moderation controls.

Xanga needs to reach its fundraising goal by July 15. If the goal is met, the site will transition over to the new platform. If not, Xanga will shut down on that date. They are currently contacting customers to let them know that they will need to back up and download their content before July 15, in case the fundraising goal isn’t met.