Before I took the weekend break, I spent a couple of days browsing through my Multiply.com account. The last time I logged in and spent more than 5 minutes on the site was about 5 years ago when I was still very active in campus politics of my alma mater. Back then, the university IT restrictions banned Facebook, Blogger, Twitter and other social networking sites except for Multiply.com (Go figure!) That’s why the site was a big hit for Lasallians back in those days. Then Facebook came along and we all know how it turned out.
At around the same time, this was the opening in which the enterprising users dominated Multiply.com with their online stores. And you can’t blame them as all the features for putting up one was already on the site. The only thing that was missing was support for online payments via PayPal or credit card. And this is where the folks behind Multiply.com took their queue. Hence, the transformation from a social networking site that easily trumped Friendster.com into an e-commerce site that has already an established shopper base.
Browsing through the old blog posts and photo albums was a nostalgia trip. Kind of like browsing through your old high school photos but with lesser heart-wrenching emotions.
Why did I even bother to log in to Multiply.com last week? Well, most of you must have already heard yet forgotten that come December 2, 2012, all of the previous user-generated content on Multiply.com will be wiped out as the company behind it completes the transition of the former buzzing social networking site into a full-fledged e-commerce site.
Users had until December 1, 2012 to export their content if they want to save any or all of it. I did not export all of my content as all of the photos are still on my hard drive while some are already posted in Facebook. So what I exerted a little effort on was to save some of the blog posts on my Multiply.com
At first I thought of manually copy-pasting a cherry-picked bunch and then posting them on my personal blog, I decided instead to take the lazy man’s route of using the built-in Tumblr exporter tool.
The downside was it only allowed me to transfer the 100 most recent posts on my Multiply.com account into my Tumblr account. Which was good enough for me, as long as I get to save some of the gems.
I figured it’s part of letting go and moving on, letting go of the things from your past in order to continue with your present journey. Though it never hurts to pause and look back from time to time as it can do wonders to your self.
I just wonder if my college buddies have exported their Multiply.com content or have completely given up on it.
As for my Multiply.com account, I’m not really sure if I’d be back again as I mainly do my online shopping on other more established local sites like Sulit.com.ph, TipidPC and Widget City. Who knows, I’ll drop by sometimes to see what has changed and what’s on offer.
Thank you Multiply.com, it’s was fun while it lasted.
