02/18/10 - Changes at Craftster

[leah]

Hello Everyone,

I have a two big pieces of news that I want to share with you.

1. NameMedia (the company that acquired Craftster in April 2008) decided to sell their "home and garden"-related communities to a company called Internet Brands.

2. I'm moving on from the world of Craftster.

I know this is big news (for me anyway! and maybe for you!) so here's some more information that you might be curious about.


Why did NameMedia sell Craftster?

NameMedia decided to shrink back the online community part of their business in order to focus on the parts that made more business sense for them.

Who is Internet Brands?

Internet Brands does a few different things but their biggest focus is running "niche" online communities. If you go to their website you'll see they they have acquired a couple hundred online communities on just about every subject under the sun. They also happen to own the online forum software package called vBulletin.

What can Craftster expect from Internet Brands?

Internet Brands has lots of experience with what to do and what not to do with community sites. You can see from the sheer variety of sites they own that they also appreciate that each community has it's own unique personality and they don't try to force all communities to fit a single mold. They have lots of people working for them -- content specialists, programmers, server admins, ad sales people, marketing people, etc etc. So I can't promise that I know exactly what they are going to do but since they have invested in buying Craftster, I think we can expect any potential changes to be made carefully and judiciously without rocking the boat and with the only intention being to improve things.

I also think that since we've been through the scary process of being acquired once and realizing that the buyer's intention is not to do something crazy and harmful to the site, that we can rest assured that this is the case here too. In all honestly as a result of my conversations with Internet Brands I feel totally comfortable with their views on running online communities.

Who's staying on with Craftster as staff

sweets4ever, jungrrl, rackycoo and kittykill are all going to continue be on Craftster's staff to continue their awesome work on Craftster with Internet Brands. And of course the fabulous Craftster moderators are still in place.


OK. So now the part about me leaving...

Internet Brands graciously offered me a position which would allow me to continue to be involved Craftster as well as to take on some other interesting tasks at the company. I really appreciate that they saw the potential in me for this job and it was really tempting in many ways. But I decided that after 6.5 years running Craftster, it's a good time for me to try doing something different in life. So, I'll soon be on my way! It's definitely going to be huuuuuuuuge change for me but I think it will be good. I've loved running Craftster and feel soooo lucky to have been able to do this for the past 6.5 years, but I'm also looking forward to trying something different.

I definitely plan to continue to be a part of Craftster as a member and who knows maybe even a moderator too. I'm so excited for the very real possibility that I'll finally have time to post my own projects and join some swaps! (I'll also be heavily involved here for a few weeks to help transition the site over to Internet Brands, so you're not rid of me yet. )

Thank you to everyone -- members, guests, mods, and the Craftster staff -- for everything YOU have done to make Craftster the amazing community it is today. I always say that I'm the one who keeps the plumbing working but that YOU ALL are the ones that keep the heart beating and keep the Craftster spirit alive! I'm so appreciative to each and every one of you for making Craftster the BEST crafting community on the Internet and giving me so much to be proud of and humbled by every day!

Lots of love and humongous piles of appreciation for you all,

Leah  



P.S. Last night at 9:00 pm I decided Craftster has long deserved a highlights video reel! I wish I'd started working on it sooner because there's lots more I would have included but here's where working from 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. got me! And best of all, think of ALL the highlights yet to come.

craftster highlights 6.5 years in 2 minutes from Craftster Video on Vimeo.

[smbiker]

I would like to introduce myself.  My name is Wade Hewitt and I work for Internet Brands.  I'm responsible for several of our sites in the Home and Money categories.  I will be working closely with the Craftster team going forward. 

First I would like to say I think Leah and team have done a fabulous job in developing the greatest crafting community on the web.  We respect all the work that has been done.  We too are sad to see Leah leave but wish her well.  I know she will succeed with whatever she tries.  We wish she was staying but respect her decision to move on.

I'm sure everyone has lots of questions and I will do my best to answer them.  I want to assure you that we don't have big changes in store.  Craftster and the community are running great now and we don't want to mess that up.  Right now we are just trying to learn the ropes.  We will be relying on Casey, Jean, Kristin and Pam among others to tell us what is right for the community.  I hope that with our resources an your expertise we can take the site to new places.

We are in the middle of migrating the site from a technical perspective.  Hopefully you won't notice anything but there might be a few hiccups.  We have already migrated to a new ad server and the DNS records have been changed.  In early March we will be migrating the servers to our hosting facility.  Like I said this should be all behind the scenes but if you notice something odd please let us know.

I'm happy to be a part of the team.
Wade

[sweets4ever]

Much much much love to Leah and many warm welcomes to Wade!

[jungrrl]

Besides the fact that we've talked about this already and the fact that I'm totally terrible at all this stuff, I just wanted to say I <3 you! You're the best boss EVER (sorry Wade!) and I'm going to miss you in that aspect of my life but I hope that we can have a bunch more fun doing normal friend stuff for ages to come.  

[leah]

Awww!! If I really was the best boss, then it's because I had the BEST TEAM EVER! 

[batgirl]

Leah, I loved having the opportunity to work with you, and while I am no longer the editor, I am really grateful for the time I was part of the team. It's hard to imagine c-ster without you, but I wish you so much success in the future. I hope you still come around and tell us what you are up to! I know whatever it is, it will be fabulous!

[jMi]

<3 you leah! sorry to hear that you are leaving-- craftster will not be the same without you!!!

i'm happy to say that i was part of the mod squad for so many years and that chase got to be one of the awesome craftster mod squad babies and that i got to par take in a meet up and have the wonderful experience in meeting you!! i hope you get to do everything you haven't had the time to do the past few years!!!

[llisaredd]

Leah, you've done a fantastic job with Craftster. Thank you for that! I hope that we WILL get to see more of your projects and get to see you in swaps too

[MareMare]

We'll be so sad to see you go Leah! Thanks for the awesome video, that is really cute.

Can't wait to see what Wade and company have in store for us!

[rackycoo]

Leah, you know everyone will miss you greatly, so you had better make good on that promise to stick around! We love you! I feel confident that we can good care of Craftster and maintain the awesome community that you created here.