Last summer, we started a team “diet”. Our objective was to be a sleeker and swifter Co-op, with faster and more responsive web sites. We’ve spent the past year focusing on site speed, and doubling-down on the sites we felt were most reflective of our goals.
In order to stay on the wagon, we shut down Should Do This last year. Running fewer websites frees up space in our brains and allows us to pay more attention to sites that people care about. In this spirit, we plan to shut down 43people.com, sometime in the near future.
43people was our third site, which helped you answer the question “Who do you want to meet?” But it seems like most of you are using 43things to track who you want to meet just fine. Also, the most popular and innovative feature on 43people was subscriptions, which we’ve since ported over to 43things.
We had a fun time building the site and want to thank everyone who used it. Once it’s down, we’ll be able to focus our attention even more on our four remaining sites.
Update: Here’s how to get all your stories and comments off of 43 People
Aw man, this sucks. Is there an automated way to download the content that we have there? And will we have a specific notice of when it’s going down for good?
We’re working on a tool that will give you all your entries and comments.
Not sure of a specific date, but we’ll update the blog once we’ve got it figured out.
Putting effort into fewer sites sound like a good idea to me, good luck in what ever you decide !
I second Todd’s comment/questions.
Also wondering about keeping content (I was upset to lose my 43 Ideas stuff, so long ago!).
Also, will this mean any changes for lists of people on listsofbests? I have a list of “Bands I’ve Seen Live” that I don’t want to lose!
We’re working on a tool that will give you all your entries and comments.
This change won’t impact the lists on Lists of Bests. However, the links to each person on lists of people currently point to 43people, so we’re working on a solution for that.
I have some reminiscing about meeting Barack Obama when we were teenagers. I’d like to keep this some place - do I have to copy and paste it over to 43things?
We’re working on a tool that will give you all your entries and comments. It won’t import them into 43things, so if you want the entry about Obama you’ll unfortunately have to copy/paste it into 43things yourself.
+1 for keeping content.
Oh! That’s a bummer. I’ve been wanting to email you about the search feature that was not working on 43 People and obviously neither in Lists of Bests. I guess there’s no fixing that anymore! lol
Anyway, it’s a bummer, but my real concern is what’s going to happen to Lists of Bests. I use them very often, and I believe many other people, too. There are _a lot_ of lists with people on it: artists, writers, musicians… Is there going to be a way to keep them? How are they going to work now and how will we be able to keep them up and modify? Thanks.
Hi Luna, lists of bests aren’t going anywhere! So don’t worry. (Except place lists are now part of 43 places)
I think it’s sad that 43people is being shut down because like 43things and 43places, 43people lets you aggregate goals, people places, without tying up your spots for goals, and places you want to visit. I think the only reason 43people (and 43 places) is more unused is because the links between sites were never promoted from the most popular site 43things and even the link to your 43people from your 43things received an error most of the time, discouraging people from learning more about it. In the long run, it makes the entire 43things universe less useful. I have made other suggestions for improving the 43things universe, but I doubt anyone bothers to read them.
Hi gohiking, we read and consider all suggestions, and reply to many of them, though we don’t have time to reply to them all.
I agree with your thoughts on the weak links between all of our sites, it’s something that could be improved and we’re thinking about the best ways to do so. Thanks for sticking with us.
Hey Robots: I was wondering if you are shutting down 43 people will 43 things be next?
They are 1,000′s of pictures and comments made, do we have to remove them and save them, when is the final date? Thank you.
George Stamas/Geo58
Hi Georgre, we’re definitely NOT shutting down 43 things! No need to worry about that.
Can I ask if you’ve thought about transferring any of the features over to 43things? For example having somewhere to still make entries about someone or having a list of want to meet/met.
Hi Ellie, you can use 43 things to make goals such as meet oprah and then make entries on those goals.
As for entries about another user, we don’t have specific plans to bring that over to 43 things, but we’re always looking for fun social features, so stay tuned!
For those who want to keep snapshots, you can use http://www.webcitation.org/
I understand you can just make a goal to meet people (like your example), but I’ve never been one to want to meet celebrities. I was asking more about just an added feature on 43 things where you could say you wanted to meet other users.
I find it much better to have that list of want to meet and met, as opposed to making a new goal for each user which takes up space and would then be hidden away once completed.
I don’t know how easy something like that is to do, but I just wanted to give my idea.
Does this mean that the calendar (which shows all your statistics for each year) will also disappear?
If so, could it be possible to perhaps move that feature to allconsuming?
Hi Michelle,
The (new and improved) calendar has been moved to 43 Things. For example, here’s mine from last year: http://www.43things.com/calendar/joe/2009
Joe