Ok, I just took some time to look over some of the comments in some of my previous posts ... and I'll clarify some positions, especially regarding some of the Xanga/Tabulas.

I personally have nothing against Xanga. I think the guys have done an excellent job of building a product that is acceptable to the masses. But don't trick yourself for a second to think that they've created a real journaling tool. They've embraced almost no standards nor have they indicated that they really care about the end-users.

The only thing I've seen from them is a commitment to maximizing profits. Look at their news pages. Their news is almost all devoted to "Oh, we've been DDOSed." Their last "new" development was on the "Feedback Log." Basically they rehashed the way that data displays, and they made a huge deal out of it.

I do more work that's unannounced than they do announced. This is what I primarily take issue with.

Now, with some of the previous posts you may sense some frustration towards Xanga. This is not a blanket frustration gripe against Xanga itself, but more along the lines of the usable web.

I've used the internet for a few years now and it's somewhat frustrating when so many people embrace bad habits. I've tried to push my values onto this system by embracing some standards (most templates are XHTML 1.0 compliant and utilize CSS instead of fonts, all journals are RSS-syndicated by default, etc.), but there is still such a great battle towards making the web a more usable place.

Now, this frustration you've been sensing at me is the two-edged sword that we know as the Internet popularity. Popularity always comes at a price.

Since the Xanga crash, Tabulas has been getting a lot of new registrations per day. This, on one hand, is good. It means more people are being exposed to Tabulas, and this *may* lead to more money in the future, which would only help this site.

But on the other hand, we're experiencing a marginlization of users. There's a deep fear that the number of users who join Tabulas will be more along the lines of the people I've poked fun of during the last few posts. There are certain new authors whom I've felt are really a great contribution to Tabulas; they *understand* what it's all about and understand why it's much better than other products. Those are the type of people I'd like to attract to Tabulas rather than the "mass quantity" of 13 year old girls posting with wild grammar.

In all, I just fear Tabulas will turn into another Xanga. The first few months will determine what type of site this is - once a stigma is associated with a site, it's almost impossible to get rid of it.