DanThornton

Tech, Geekery, Pop Culture, Miscellaneous

And now Typepad is shutting down

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It feels a lot like I’m writing a eulogy for the Web 2.0 era at the moment. Some of my more recent posts have been about the closure of Ello, Keen and Tastebuds.fm. And now Typepad is shutting down at the end of the month.

Originally launched in 2003, Typepad was a simple blogging platform, along the lines of Blogger (launched in 1999), and the hosted version of WordPress (also 2005). Launched by Six Apart, it’s currently owned by Endurance International Group, who also own Bluehost, Hostgator, Yoast SEO and lots more.

And now Typepad is shutting down
And now Typepad is shutting down

I’ve never really used Typepad myself, having gone from Blogger in my very early days to self-hosted WordPress. But after finally starting to go back through old posts and archives on my sites in a bit of housekeeping, it’s noticeable how many people I know who used it ‘back in the day’.

And there are a number of people posting that they’ve experienced issues trying to export their content to upload to other platforms at the moment. That’s causing some stress with the deadline of September 30th, 2025 for Typepad to be completely shut.

It’s sad for anyone that loses their archive, and the fact that it adds to the huge amount of link rot on the internet. If you’re using a standard .typepad.com URL, then you won’t be able to redirect it, and even many of the people using custom domains years ago have either let them lapse, or not put any redirects in place (intentionally or not) meaning that anything mentioning those old articles will be broken.

Letting old content disappear is even encouraged as part of pruning sites, reducing crawl budgets etc. And it’s certainly something which can produce benefits for search rankings, but at the same time as someone who values history it’s sad to see somewhere between 30-50% of pages and links disappear over the course of a decade.

I’d always recommend self-hosting any site, as it gives you much more control over the domain and host, especially if you make sure you’re constantly backing up and exporting everything. And it’s pretty cheap – you can always give me a shout for cost-effective solutions.

And if you are pruning old content, you should always try and redirect anything with value to a relevant page/post that will still be operational.

That includes your entire domain if you’ve decided to rebrand etc, otherwise you might find yourname.com becomes a home of casino spam etc. Sometimes hidden amongst legitimate articles, or alternatively just replacing whatever was there before.

It’s also sad to see so many longstanding Web 2.0 era services slowly disappear. Even at the time, a lot of startups didn’t make it past their early months, but in 2025 it feels like many of the social web aspects have disappeared in favour of a tiny number of walled gardens operated by a handful of monolyths, just as in traditional print, film, TV etc. While I’m still hopeful and optimistic about the Fediverse, it feels that if younger internet users are spoonfed everything by the likes of Google, Apple, Meta, ByteDance and xAI, then they’ll never realise the joy of creating and owning your projects, connecting with people outside of closed networks, building and collaborating, and all the stuff that made the internet a fun and inspiring place.

Tastebuds.fm shuts down today

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It seems that my blog is becoming a grave site for various niche sites that sprang up during what might be increasingly referred to as the ‘golden age’ of the world wide web, before AI slop, when social networks were fun, and the current monopolies hadn’t completely taken over. There was Ello, Keen (which harked back to social sharing sites), and now Tastebuds.fm shuts down today.

Launched back in 2010, the idea was that you could meet people and date by importing lists of your favourite music from Spotify, Last.fm (which I’m happy to say is still going at the moment, 18 years and 101,798 songs after I first joined) and Facebook.

Tastebuds.fm shuts down today

Having signed up around 13 years ago, it’s one of those services that seemed like a really good idea but never really seemed to catch hold with enough people. I’ve dipped in an out over the years, mainly when single, but never enough for it to become a habit. Possibly because it straddled an odd line between being a social network, and a dating site.

The places I’ve lived over the last decade aren’t exactly in the middle of nowhere, but there never seemed to be enough local people talking about upcoming gigs. And being in a relationship, the dating side became irrelevant, meaning I’ve only logging in a handful of times in the last few years, mainly just to check out the bands and songs I’d listed on my profile in the past to see how my tastes have changed.

Judging by various comments around the web, most people seem to feel a similar way, although there are some nice stories of people meeting their significant other through the service.

Tastebuds.fm shuts down today

It’s not the first website or business I’ve seen close, especially given how much Google has done to launch and shutter services of the years (or the loss of ThisIsMyJam back in 2015, which hit harder at the time). But seeing various people shutter their projects feels different now, especially when I’ve had accounts with them for more than a decade, and the rollout of AI is changing the nature of the internet. I’ve let a couple of side projects quietly fade out of existence already this year, and there are some more that won’t auto-renew in the future.

I do wonder if it’s just the fact I’m getting older, but talking to my son, people at DPiP and online, there’s a malais and melancholy which seems pretty broadly shared across generations for how things were.

So while I probably won’t be mourning the loss of Tastebuds.fm on a regular basis, it’s always a shame to see services disappear, and it hits a little harder than it would have done a few years ago.

Stepping away from ‘big’ social

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I’m not planning to attempt a dramatic exit with a grand flourish, but I’ve noticed myself gradually stepping away from ‘big’ social. The changes to Twitter post-Musk are fairly noticeable and well documented, but I’ve grown increasingly tired of the constant baiting and absolutistism on all social networks. Even if I’m increasingly resisting the urge to reply, it’s hard to ignore the deluge of rubbish piling up in each scroll through social feeds.

Attention is money when you’re largely funded by advertising or paywalls. And it’s much easier to inspire anger and outrage, especially when you’re panding to a large audience of strangers.

From politics and religion, to the era of mass media, it’s always held true. There was a brief blip when the internet was niche enough that many people were more grateful to find like-minded geeks, than interested in notoriety and fame. Which meant a lower proportion of annoyance on a daily basis. But as mainstream adoption arrived, that changed.

It’s not about everyone agreeing with my particular world view, or beliefs. I enjoy respectfully debating with friends and contacts who have different perspectives, and hopefully learning things from each other, even if we’ll never find a middle ground that pleases everyone.

What gets to me is seeing people sharing blatant rubbish, dog whistles, and being offensive for the sake of it. There’s a different between being provocative for a reason, and running around like a toddler who has discovered swearing for the first time. And boosting your follower numbers isn’t a good reason.

Stepping away from 'big' social

I’ve always wondered why people needed to comment on things that were irrelevant to them. There are lots of TV shows, sports and hobbies that don’t interest me, so I don’t watch them or take part. But I’ve never felt any need to pursue their fans around, telling them why their personal choices are rubbish.

Which is probably good, seeing as they’d be armed with cricket bats and golf clubs. Both of which seem like a waste of a nice afternoon to me. But I can understand why people feel passionately about them, and would likely wonder why I’m happy standing on a grassy bank watching cars or motorcycles drive in circles.

But there’s another reason for stepping away. Social networks offer a similar promise to reality TV, with fame and potential earnings if you’re noticeable enough. And that means constantly striving to be in the top 1%, with the money dropping off pretty steeply towards the middle ground. Most of us will be average, by definition. So what’s the point in chasing a big view count or follower number?

The best projects and communities I’ve been part of all had fairly small networks of people working together for a common aim. Whether it was the editorial forum producing the Disposable Media PDF mag in the early 2000s, the team that came together for DPiP and Peterborough STEM Festival, the times when the MCN website was being run by just a few people largely ignored by the rest of the company, or Absolute Radio was launching new apps and tech every week as an upstart outsider. Or the Team ORD sim racing squad on Discord.

And the final reason is fairly simple. Sharing my thoughts online will probably never make me rich or famous. But when I share them here, they last for as long as the domain and hosting are running. And any benefits from notoriety, advertising, email sign-ups or connections will pass my way, rather than to Musk or Zuckerberg (or their investors and shareholders).

I’ll still use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc, but mainly for private messages and discussions with people who have interesting opinions or views that I’ll respect even if I don’t agree with. I’m wary of sites in the midde ground of popularity, with the constant risk that they’ll be acquired and disappear overnight (like Ello). And I’ll continue to explore new options, like the federated networks which include Mastodon and Pixelfeed (I’m currently sharing my virtual sim racing photography on Pxlmo for example).

But from now on, I’m intending to focus on sharing more on my own sites, including the half-formed random ramblings like this. Or simple tweet or toot-length observations which ignore all SEO advice. And contributing in small communities with positive purposes and targets, whether that’s to help the local community, improve healthcare for marginalised groups or just get better at sim racing.