The email was terse and to the point. The new CEO of Salon.com told us, "... we have determined that The WELL no longer aligns with our business plans and accordingly we are exploring transferring The WELL to new management."
Since 1999 the WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) has been a property of Salon, but at its founding in 1985 it was an audacious experiment in bootstrapping a subscription-based social business, over six years before the commercial Internet and almost 20 years before "social media" became the driving meme behind marketing and content creation.
Salon has struggled to survive financially for over a decade. I was its Director of Community when the WELL
was purchased. I had been Director of the WELL from 1986 through 1992. Though I haven't been active on the WELL for years, I fully understand its rich culture and I was present during the years when that culture formed through daily turmoil.
In the pre-Web formative years of online social interaction, there were no pundits, no experts, and few mentors to share the lesssons of earlier online community efforts. WELL members discovered, in very personal ways, the issues of privacy, intellectual property, online etiquette, community leadership, true identity and intimate daily engagement. We amazed one another with what could be accomplished through "typing as talking." In our long-term discussions we envisioned what might come in the future. Such as graphic interfaces. Today's Web was science fiction.
The WELL grew up in an environment of text-only communications, of unreliable and slow technology, of modems and cathode ray tube monitors. Words and relationships were everything. It was one of the very first commercial users of the Internet and I've always cherished my original email account <[email protected]> (partly because it's been so easy to remember and type.) After I quit, the WELL went on, adapting to the Web while preserving some of the technical quirks that made it unique as a social platform. It still charges monthly fees for membership, and it still attracts people looking for interesting conversation on all manner of topics.
Now the WELL's future is uncertain, to say the least. We can only imagine how much Salon might get from selling the domain well.com. Many of its members are now engaged in figuring out options for relocation and continuation of its community. Pledges are being made by desparate members toward a bid for buying the "property," but it's doubtful that such efforts will match an offer from Big Healthcare or Big Pharma.
Yes, all things must pass, and simply being the longest running crap game in the online community business does not guarantee a free pass to survival. It would be great if benefactors seeking to preserve a historical community on the Net would appear out of the ether, but there's a reason Howard Rheingold titled his ground breaking book "the VIRTUAL community." There will be no bulldozers and dusty demolition in shutting down the WELL. It will be as quiet as a mouse click.
The word "community" can mean a lot more than "we're all interested in the same thing" or "all of these people buy our products." Community can go deep, can be a reliable resource, an answer to the quest for something bigger than our selves. The WELL has been that for thousands of people over 28 years. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, but soon you may type "well.com" into the address bar and you'll get "This Web Page is Not Available." Or you'll land on the home page of some big healthcare business.
As events develop, I'll be following up here with reports. One thing about the Internet - it supports adaptation very well. There may indeed be a future for the WELL even without its iconic domain name.