The Demise of Bubblews (2012-2015)
When I went into freelance writing and blogging full-time 3 years ago, Bubblews was one of the first sites I signed up with. It was a blogging and networking site where you could share your thoughts and viewpoints with millions of people throughout the world. I profited well from working with the site.
Unfortunately, after they changed the rules, in order to keep up with the Joneses, the effectiveness of the site deteriorated, and I had to go elsewhere (they had also lapsed on several payments). I left the site in 2014 to pursue other opportunities. Throughout the years, I checked in at Bubblews to see if the new changes were making the site better. They were still lapsing on payments for the majority of the members.
About 30 minutes ago, I found out from a former Bubblews colleague that the site had shut down. I went online and checked the site and was greeted with the following message:
"Greetings, After being up and running for almost 3 years now we regrettable need to inform you that we will be shutting Bubblews.com down. The climate for display advertising has drastically changed and made it impossible for us to sustain the business model and operations. We want to thank everyone that was a part of this journey. We wish you all the very best. -Bubblews."
After the site makeover was unveiled (in 2014), Bubblews received a lot of media attention and the founders were excited about these new changes. I was still working for the site when these changes occurred and the changes were not welcoming. The site was buggy and constantly down.
The message that I was greeted with makes me wonder if the site shutting down was an abrupt issue. I did have a secret account that I would go on and see how things were going. I never received a message about this shutdown. I know that a large fraction of the Bubblews community depended on their payments in order to survive (I did when I was a member). This abrupt ending of Bubblews could really f*ck up many families.
The founders of Bubblews should have given proper notification of any trouble they were having. Even their Facebook page hasn't been updated (last post was in July).
I used to work on a site called Helium, and I received 30 day notification when they shut down. Helium was very similar to Bubblews.
Now, I know things happen and you are forced to shut down. Like I said, notification of any site changes should be provided to members who profit monetarily from it.
With that said, the one thing that I liked about Bubblews was that I became life-long friends with several people from the site. We've become this little family that helps one another out with writing and life in general.
This is the only thing that I am grateful about in regards to my time on Bubblews (aside from the money I made).
Readers: Did you write for Bubblews? If so, what are your thoughts about this abrupt demise? What did you like/dislike about the site?
