Tanner Brigade Options by Pocket Dog

DEAR MEMBERS OF BLOGVILLE:  I MANAGE A SITE FOR DOGS CALLED THE TANNER BRIGADE.  BECAUSE OF PROBLEMS WITH THE NETWORK THAT HOSTS THE SITE WE ARE LOOKING FOR A NEW HOMES.  IN THE BELOW BLOG I LIST BECOMING AN INDEPENDENT BLOGGER AS AN OPTION.  IF YOU COULD PLEASE, IN THE COMMENT SECTION, LEAVE A MESSAGE ABOUT WHAT YOU DO OR DON'T LIKE ABOUT BLOGVILLE IT WILL BE GREAT APPRECIATED.  THANK YOU.

Oh boy!  When Foley left me in charge of  the Tanner Brigade she said it ran itself.  But now the only place it is running itself is into the ground.  

Plus, I received word last month, that starting in July 2017, the price is going to double.  I didn’t say anything.  I wanted to do this year’s fund raising, which went very well, and then worry about next year when it comes.  But how do I ask twice as much for a site that doesn’t run.  Oh boy!  I am biting my paws down to the nub.

And the company that owned Ning, Mode, collapsed and was bought out by another company.  Hobo and Enzo investigated the new owners and found out they are just one guy who buys sites from companies that are going bankrupt and then sells them.  Until they sell them they have not interest in making the site better!  Oh boy.

So what should we do?  My piece of advice is to save all your pictures, and, if you want, blogs that you have posted.  I don’t expect Ning to go away with no notice but I can’t guarantee it.  Being forewarned is forearmed.  I just remembered, dogs don’t have forearms.  Oh boy!

I am not as smart as Enzo, or Hobo, when it comes to money, but I don’t think we should spend more money on a site that we can’t use now.  I know we have built a lot of memories on this site, but we all have to move sometime and unless the site improves we may have to give thought to moving.

I know we have a lot of members but, but my count, there are only 38 of us that are contribute content.  That is about the same amount when we started.  I have some solutions.

One is to stay on Ning.  We still have a site here so we don’t have to do anything right away.  Maybe things will improve it a new buyer comes along.  

The second is to go to Blogger.  There are good things and bad things about Blogger.

The bad things:  Every member would have to set up their own individual page.  We would not be under the name Tanner Brigade.  You would only have your blog page.  You would have to go to someone else’s page to post a comment.  There aren’t any pages for photos, events, or chat.   

The good things:  There is a great blogger community that does what we do and more.  I am sure I could set up blog pages that we would all have access to and create the church page, or other group pages.  You can set up more than one blog for your account so people with multiple dogs could have multiple pages.  It is free.  You will get an email whenever someone who is your friend posts something or adds a comment to a blog.  And it is owned by Google so it is not going anywhere and I have been on it for seven years and it has never gone down.

The third is to go to a new site hosted by https://www.socibd.com/.  

The bad things:  It is a pay site, $25.00 a month for the cheapest, and I don’t know what that site comes with.  Also it is owned by a group like Mode and we could have the same problem.  I think we collected enough money to pay for twelve months at $25.00 a month.  

The good things:  It is set up the same as Ning so there would not be a learning curve.  The transition would be easier.  It is also private.  There is a 14 day free trial with the Socidb site so a few of us could try it and see if we like it.  

Enzo had also sent me several sites to investigate.  One, calls, Spruz, is very similar to Socibd.  It it free for a small amount of users so we could also test that sites.

I am also still investigating other sites Enso sent me.

So, my friends, let me know what you think.   

Let me know what you think about staying here, or going to Blogger, or a new site.  I will try to answer any questions you have.  

I know I can do this.

Oh boy.