Visiting Shoutwire, as I often do, I had cause to log in today. I often don’t as nothing in particular is worth commenting on and to sign in means clearing out all the logins from any other sites I might frequent. This is no mean feat, as it involves remembering screen names and passwords which I ultimately confuse. But anyway, Zero’s ultimatum caught my attention and as long as I was here I’d offer up my own observations as to the state of the site.
First off , I checked the all important alexa rankings. I was quite surprised to see the numbers are on the upswing after tanking in January. I was also surprised to see the country with the largest amount of site activity is India.
Shoutwire.com users come from these countries:
37.2% India
25.9% United States
6.3% United Kingdom
5.3% Pakistan
5.1% Indonesia
2.2% Canada
1.9% Australia
1.8% Philippines
1.4% Serbia and Montenegro
1.2% Germany
0.9% Thailand
0.8% China
0.7% Russia
0.6% Denmark
0.6% Malaysia
0.5% Venezuela
7.6% OTHER
I can’t say I have anything against India. Ghandi was from there, so I’m sure there are some genuinely interesting people who aren’t self promoting spammers. I take it as a personal deficiency that I have yet had an opportunity to meet one.
I also suspect Bulshoy had been single handedly holding off the Taliban seeing as with his departure, Pakistan is now trouncing Canada’s user numbers. Zero’s promise to kick in doors and “kill em all” apparently didn’t pan out.
Reviewing the data, I can only conclude that: although the site appears to be mildly rebounding, it’s focus has shifted. I first took the banality of the front page and comments within to be due to the departure and banning of notable muckrakers now happily frequenting a more esoteric site replete with boobs, dicks, cunts and insufferable flaming.
I had thought with their departure, a new guard of vulgar, social miscreants would take the lead. I was wrong. “Scout” may be the last of the outraged activists who at onetime made up a good portion of regular contributors.
Shoutwire has sold out. A good thing for an owner depending on ads, redirects and page views to pay the bills. Maybe not so good for old timers like myself.
Zero’s promise to leave Shoutwire if demands aren’t met rings hollow in comparison with previous attempts to make the owner responsible to it’s members. At one time, users would mercilessly spam the site with angry editorials and nonsense until advertisers were ready to bail out. Which worked for about 15 minutes at a time.
Whether or not Zero leaves Shoutwire for good is questionable. However, if I drop in here in the next five days to find a completely accessible format, I’ll shit in my hat.
Shoutwire, founded by pirates and once home to all types of scalawags more resembles a Carnival Cruise ship these days. I won’t pass judgment on the site as is, because apparently many like it so. But in closing:
SHOUTWIRE IS DEAD - ahem - long live whatever this place is now.