Google Plus shut down - Opinion Piece - The Chronicles of Han Book Series

"Change is the only Constant"

When public blog forums disband and social media sites close down, the disruption of the communities in these places are as devastating as natural disasters or other human displacement situations.

The knock-on effect is not just the mental loss or digital shortage, because to some individuals these platforms are their lifelines or daily bread.

Yes, it is great when you are advised to find another forum, preventing the devastation of just summarily having your work wiped in one instant. I've lived through the blog.24 shut down and had to re-do all the blogs for the readers who were interested on another platform. When this new blog was hacked and destroyed, I placed the blogs on my website and published it in booklet form.

The end result of these constant migrations and 'e-volvement' is that the people who make a living through using these public platforms constantly have to re-invent themselves.
Life change.
Companies close all the time while sections of the internet stop working.
That is life. Get over it!

Or so I'm being told.
For most individuals this is a great opportunity to start fresh somewhere else.
Others just look at the whole internet and social media 'thing' and decide "what is the point?" shutting down and finding other interests, like reading proper paper books, never mind if they are dogeared and yellowed with age from the second hand bookstore. At least you own the book and do not rent it into perpetuity. This might start a new era in the printed word.

Half of my readers are pensioners. Most are devastated by this news as they had spent a significant portion of their time enjoying interactions in Google Plus as the opposition in blue just do not satisfy their needs.
Most are not interested in migrating or learning new programs. Any change Google had made to Google Plus had been a crisis in any case and I'm finding a disconcerting scenario of "I'm too old for this . . ."

So what is left when the forums and social media fail?

The original chat groups? Privately owned Blogs and email lists? Half-hearted efforts of starting new social media concepts that may or may not collapse within a year?

Will this not set us back to the start of internet? Or might this mean a total revamp of how authors and readers interact again? It is not as if the other platforms are geared up to be able to do what G+ could.

I guess, as with everything else in life, only time will tell what happens.

Find my books on my website. I am NOT on Amazon. Instant gratification is not guaranteed as I work the old fashioned way. Pay via PayPal, get receipt, email books.
Most of my books are available in Kindle format.
www.chroniclesofhan.com