It probably would have been a smart thing to use Xanga to promote my other love, being a half assed designer, but I always felt weird about it.  Yes, that's my secret.  I design stuff and my "store" puts them on products.  Xanga is my blogging place and it never felt comfortable promoting my things here.  

However @Saintvi is having a Xanga give away, ( please go to her site and at least rec, even if you don't want to participate.) I think it's great how people are coming together to find creative ways to save Xanga so, I decided to donate.  Here are some examples of my donation of prizes.  Before I show you, realize all products can be traded out for something of equal or lesser value.  So if you hate the design or have no use for the product, you can choose something else.  

So here is what I have donated

Available in other designs, as I said.  Case for iphone, 3, 4, and 5,  Samsung Galaxy 4, or ipod case 

 A small print, of your choice, this is just an example

Throw pillow case, again you can switch out for new design or something equal to or lesser value 

For the babies among us

Flower tote or for different example go to saintvi's site

Or if I get copyright permission I would be happy to put the xanga logo on one of these products if you win one.  Can't win if you don't play, so play

To see the other wonderful donations go to this blog

Please rec her entry as well as this one

To get the word out, thanks 

Back in the day, a sure fire way to get on the front page of Xanga was to use the word "sex" in the title. Now you basically just have to post.  You could never pass @TheTheologiansCafe in his number one spot, well, maybe if you used the word sex and vagina in the title. That tells me Xanaga is dying, has been dying a slow death for a long time.

Is it terminal though?  Lets examine, when I joined Xanga many moons ago, both my kids used Xanga regularly.  I call these days the days of long, facebook, status's.  All the high school kids used Xanga to write cryptic or not so cryptic entries about their huge, horrible, high school, lives.  Here is a short example.

Dear Xanga ( aka public diary) 

Why doesn't SHE get it?????  WE are meant to be.  You think he loves you, well listen up! He told me he loves you as a FRIEND.  So get a clue.  Also, my mom is such a B****.  If your name is Megan, or Jill, or Mandy, you know why.  If not, none of your business. ha ha ha

Well till tomorrow then, 

Angie

OR

I don't have anything to say. bye

These were usually the boy entries

comments on Angie's entry

Lana: You wish, sorry but we are seeing the Notebook tonight, get your facts straight, you're the friend. 

Megan: ha ha, no kidding

Mandy: Lana, you're SO mean.  She's been hurt enough

Angie: You 2 can have each other!!!!!!!  Megan? what do you mean? Call me!

Why then did I decided to join the ranks of the immature drama queens?  Well it started with me wanting to comment on my son's entry about me losing his laundry.  Excuse me?  Still pisses me off.  And I WAS kind of immature back then in my early 40's.  I also used it to get messages out to my kid's group of friends.

For example, that was when someone was putting poop on people's cars.  No, this is not a joke.  It was disgusting and weird and disturbing.  so I wrote an entry to get the word out that I WOULD find out who this was and I would punish them.  And true to my word, I did find out, a couple years ago.  Ok, it took a while, I admit, but if you're reading this, and I don't think you are,  I'll still find a way to punish you, even though you are married and I think moved away.  Which makes you very lucky, since if I had found out who you were at the time, your name would have been announced on my Xanga, and it is doubtful you would have gotten someone to marry you, since you would have been Known forever, as shit boy.

Back on topic.  Xanga, soon turned into a way for me to connect with strangers, and write, what I thought were kind of humorous and interesting things that people could relate to.  This turned into an obsession and eventually caused a HUGE riff with my ex husband's ( expunged ) new girl friend.  Not that she wasn't looking for a reason to hate me.  Which I still don't get, she got the "prize" and she was welcome to it.

Anyway, Xanga was a way to blog, and as I said connect with strangers.  I was only slightly nervous when I met a couple people, which was probably stupid in retrospect, since both could have been serial killers.

But of course they weren't, since you really do get to know a person through their writings. Although, we now know there are tons of people who have been catfished, so I am glad @mouthygirl, really was a southern housewife, not a 500 pound, bald man.   

soon after the girlfriend fiasco, I blogged less and less.

facebook replaced Myspace and I guess xanga too, although Xanga, to me wasn't the same at all.

And that, I think, is what became part of the problem.  Xanga could never decide what it was.  A blogging site, a social media connection with friends and family, or a social media site with strangers?  

I think if Xanga would have decided then, to be a blogging site, and reward, good, quality written blogs, with front page, based on them actually reading and seeking those blogs out, they would be thriving today.

I read some of the funniest, wonderful, well written blogs, that deserved to be recognized. Blogs that could have been authors of best selling books, and their blogs would have connected back to Xanga. And as I said, could have been thriving.  I even offered, to the team, to find great blogs, for free.  I already had actually, they just needed to feature those people.

 Before you scoff, think about it, it has happened on other blogging sites, with many people.   A couple really popular blogs, get asked to write a book,or just write one based on their huge following, they do, it sells, mega, free advertizing. 

So it's not really about them asking for money from me and you.  It's about me having a clear idea what they want to be.  Decide, do it right, and then maybe.  Until then, it's doubtful, I would feel like I was paying for one of those radical treatments, with terminal cancer.  The new Xanga,and what they offer, makes no sense to me.  If you can convince me otherwise, have at it.