Part 1 – Multiply is Closing Down
For those of you with an old or existing Multiply account, these are going to be shut down and removed soon. Nominally on the 1 December but in all likelihood way before then.
Multiply’s niche in the blogosphere way back when it started was its integrated use of blog and photo albums and ease of choosing levels of access to each blog post or album, everyone, friends of friends, friends, contacts or even specifying individual people. At the time there was nothing else that was so user-friendly. Any person who could use a mouse could use Multiply. Indeed now, many of the long-term multiply users are finding the instructions to learn Blogger or WordPress difficult because Multiply took care of so much for them.
Unfortunately as time marched on, Multiply’s interface grew buggy and many of us did abandon ship only to realise that we could not easily take our content with us. Oh if you were running two blogs at the same time, Multiply would copy your post to the other blog at the time you wrote it, but it if you didn’t have the forethought to do that, tough luck.
In 2009, Multiply head office noticed a large spike in usage in The Philippines and Indonesia. Closer examination led to the discovery of members using Multiply to trade within local communities. This was completely against Multiply terms and conditions. Multiply management discussed the situation and instead of shutting them down, they created the “Marketplace” segment of Multiply so these sellers could operate legitimately within the Multiply framework.
If anyone feels like it is after the introduction of Marketplace that the social media interface started to get a little buggy and the support started to be less than the sterling efforts we were used to, well it appears this was when the decision was made to shut down the Social Media side – two years ago.
Fast forward two years, Multiply is sold to Naspers. In May 2012, Naspers CEO Stefan Magdalinski moves to Indonesia and with him the head office of Multiply.com, to focus on the “Marketplace” side of Multiply but still tells the bloggers that “sellers and bloggers can coexist“. Three months later, 7 August 2012 we are informed that the social side of the site will be closed down on 1 December, and all that will remain is Marketplace.
They planned two years ago, lied to everyone until 7 August and then informed all users without providing ANY export tools or in fact ANYTHING other than an eviction notice in place. This does not leave me any confidence that any tools are forthcoming.
They also misunderstood why these sellers were using Marketplace as opposed to more common forms of online selling. These sellers were mostly selling locally within their community. So they were using the social aspects of Multiply, the blog and photo albums to remain a part of their community. It is a completely different ideology than the Western ideas of “customers” or “marks”. By forcing them to cut off that segment and to be a “western-style” business, Naspers is destroying the exact part that made them so desirable as an online selling platform.
Also, coinciding with the publicity surrounding the Multiply.com headquarters relocating to Indonesia, the Philippines government has levied a new range of taxes and registration requirements for these types of sellers. It may be coincidental, but a proportion are quite angry with Multiply.com and leaving the service in droves.
To summarise, Multiply.com was humming along as an alternative blogging/photo hosting site when it noticed online selling. Plans were laid to monetise or capitalise on this online selling. These plans have backfired massively.
From here things could go a couple of ways, and it all depends on Naspers and the online sellers. For us social users, the prognosis doesn’t look good and I’m doubtful that any of the promised export tools will ever become available or that our content will stay up until 1 December 2012.
So onto Part 2 – what do I do with my stuff?
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