Was the once-much-acclaimed youth and young adult site FUUSE.com simply a victim of social networking concentration — mainly to Facebook — or is there something more to the story? ‘Cause I went over there to see what was new and it’s a ghost town.
Not that I have much love for anything name with a pronounceable UU in the middle of it — one of the least pleasing Unitarian Universalist habits — but it’s not like I wanted to see it die. (OK, maybe a little because of its “Voice of the RevoUUtion” tag.)
If you know some of the backstory, do tell.
You REALLY would have hated my idea of calling the GA workshop on blogging “SnUUP Bloggy Blog” then.
CC
Scott,
Rev. Joseph Santos-Lyons (formerly with the UUA Young Adult and Campus Ministry Office) asked about this on his blog about 1 month ago where he noted that no one has posted anything new since June 2008:
http://radicalhapa.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/is-fuuse-dead/
He had no answers and no one has commented on his blog about this.
Given the move to Facebook as a social networking tool in the past year with many individual Unitarian Universalists, this may simply be spontaneous and unplanned move to Facebook from FUUSE.
This could very well be the social networking equivalent of Darwinian selection – no one “planned” on Facebook becoming the social network of choice instead of FUUSE.
The FUUSE site developers have done some web site development for some UU and other religious liberal organizations as well — e.g. Southwest District, Church of the Younger Fellowship, American Friends Service Committee, Laurel Hallman for UUA Pres, Greater New Orleans Area UUs, etc.
Only a personal reflection: I was put onto Fuuse while I was living in Boston (MA) and talked to another British Unitarian on then for two years before we finally met, and then lived together (as housemates) for a year when I came back to the UK.
I used to spend a lot of time on Fuuse, reading other people’s journals, keeping up, and chatting with people I knew from UU YA conferences. Since I started a blog, I don’t really use the online journal, and yes, Facebook is the way I generally keep up with the same people now. I suppose it is Darwinian selection.