Yea verily, where one rises another is smote down....

[DR. BELCH]

Wait..."smote"? Or is it "smited"? Or "smitten"? Or "smooted"? Eh, fer th' love of Christine MacIntyre, I can never get those consarned Biblical verbs properly conjugated! :rolleyes:

Ah, well. My point is that www.themestream.com has run out of money and shut its doors, presumably permanently. Ain't that a kick in the cojones?
So right about the same time our board is reborn, another one goes the way of the Internet dinosaurs. I don't know if Sharklady knows Themestream is dead, but I bet if she does she's no happier than I am. I didn't even reach my first $25 goal yet--I was less than three bucks short! :mad: :(

"Hell is...other people !" --Jean-Paul Sartre, "Final Exit".

"I was wrong. Hell is myself." --Daria Morgendorffer, "Monster".

[The Mad Hatter]

Errr... remind me, what did Themestream do?

But yeah, investors are so skittish about the internet lately, and ad revenues are down so much, that a lot of formerly free websites are charging money. Two of my favorites switched over last week, ign.com and salon.com. Dangit... then again, they provide some great content, so I'll probably fork some over just to show my support.

[DR. BELCH]

--was to provide young writers with a forum to hone their skills and find a voice/audience. I should have suspected something was up months ago when the payment per hit was cut by four-fifths--that is, from a dime to two measly pennies. Cheap rackinfrackin' mud-suckers.... :mad: :(

[The Mad Hatter]

Oh, that's right. Narf.

Well, I wouldn't be too angry at themestream... they've just had to endure the latest market over-reaction to the web. At first, it was just throwing piles of money to whatever useless site was out there, just because it was online. Now, we're at the equally-silly "don't give any internet site any money despite how successful they are" stage. Hopefully we'll reach equilibrium soon.

I hope.

[Inque]

Wait..."smote"? Or is it "smited"? Or "smitten"? Or "smooted"?
......it's smitten.

[Bubba]

That's too bad about Themestream. It was a good idea, but a tough one to sell as a money maker in a VC market like this. There will be many, many more start-ups that have to fold when they find themselves going back to dry wells for more investment capital.

[DR. BELCH]

It's not that much different from small press print magazines. I've submitted fiction to at least two dozen publishers, and I'm forever making notations in the margins of my Writer's Market (which is sadly a couple or three years out of date) that some company has since changed its address or gone out of business. Also, not all of them pay money; Seedhouse ([/URL] ) and Oyster Boy Review ( (http://www.seedhousemag.org)) pay only 2 contributor's copies. Btween recalcitrant editors and little rags that go belly-up without notice, the writing field is getting harder to eke out a living in. :mad: :(

Addendum: I edited this to fix the first link (it was broken and thus invalid)...and while I'm at it I'll throw up a third one to a paying magazine: [url]http://www.fsfmag.com. I like this one because it's the promptest replier in my address book; my rejection letters come within two short weeks. :rolleyes:

[Sharklady]

> I don't know if Sharklady knows Themestream is dead, but I bet if she does she's no happier than I am. <

Yes, I do know- they notified me via e-mail. And the message made me sadder than it had any right to (I hadn't written any new articles for 'em in months- it didn't seem worth the effort, at two cents a 'hit'.)

Well, it was a rather fun ride while it lasted. And I did collect $75 in payments- that bought me a few panes of art glass, at least.

[Sharklady]

> I don't know if Sharklady knows Themestream is dead, but I bet if she does she's no happier than I am. <

Yes, I do know- they notified me via e-mail. And the message made me sadder than it had any right to (I hadn't written any new articles for 'em in months- it didn't seem worth the effort, at two cents a 'hit'.)

Well, it was a rather fun ride while it lasted. And I did collect $75 in payments- that bought me a few panes of art glass, anyway.

[Sharklady]

Opps!

It looks like I'm gonna have to learn how to avoid double-postings all over again!