7/25/09

Hello all.  As many of you are aware, The Friendly Briefs has been more of a very part-time hobby for us rather than a business or regular project.  We've enjoyed designing, re-designing, building, and watching you all put it to use and make it better through your feedback.  However, for some time now, we just haven't had the time to do it justice or to incorporate your feedback as fully as we'd like. It's become increasingly hard for us to justify the expense of keeping this going if we're not able to devote the time and attention it requires to make The Friendly Briefs experience a complete and ever-improving one.

Sooooooo, after much contemplation and, quite honestly, anguish over how to handle things, we've decided it's best to close down The Friendly Briefs and point you all towards a couple services that provide a similar experience as well as a track record for continual improvement of their services. Today was the last day of service for The Friendly Briefs.  We know many of you have put much time and energy into making your newspapers a lively place for friends and families to stay connected.  We apologize for the inconvenience our decision may bring you, and we sincerely hope you're able to find an alternative that lets you stay connected.  For starters, we encourage you to check out:

1) Ning (http://www.ning.com): instead of creating "newspapers", Ning lets you create "social networks", which really are the same thing at heart.  We like them because we find the setup and usage of your social networks to be pretty darned simple and relatively close to The Friendly Briefs' experience.  Also, they make it straightforward how to keep your news as private or as public as you like.  They're a well-funded company and have a bright future in this market, so they're likely to be around for a while.

2) Facebook (http://facebook.com): if you and your subscribers are already on Facebook, well then, this option is a pretty logical one.  Facebook lets you create "groups", where you can control privacy and membership settings pretty well.  Login to your Facebook account, mouse over "settings" in the top right, click "application settings", and then click the "Groups" link.  Setup is pretty straightforward from there.  Note, if you're not already an experienced Facebook user, I gotta be honest, it's pretty complicated compared to The Friendly Briefs, and you're likely to get lost during account creation or group setup.  I'd recommend going the Ning route if you want a simpler solution.

Again, we're very sorry this day had to come, but given our circumstances and availability to put time and energy into The Friendly Briefs, we think this was for the best.  Thank you all so much for your support and your enthusiasm for staying connected with friends and family.

The Friendly Briefs Crew