webring users win

A few months back, Webring.org posted an announcement stating that they were going to be changing their service to a "paid" service in January, retaining only a *very* limited version of their free service (think only 5 ring memberships at a time). After several months of complaining, seeing numerous ringmasters sending out messages to their ringmembers that they are leaving, and seeing ring applications go unanswered for longer periods of time that I have been accustomed to, it appears that webring.org has finally gotten the message.

In a new email sent to their current userlist, it has been announced that a free version of the site will remain in place, very similar to the service that we enjoy today. An unusual win for the user experience - perhaps they took to heart what happened to sites like mp3.com and napster when they implemented their paid programs. Webring.org will still be implementing a paid version of the site, but it sounds like it will be an "enhanced" version of what we are using today. Honestly, the site and service is still relatively buggy and difficult to navigate that I can't see paying anything to use it. Perhaps the "paid" version of the site will feature a better user interface.

Let's just hope that they figure out how to monetize their site so that we can continue to use this service for free. Although the benefits of webrings seem to be waning as search engines begin penalizing sites for obvious "linkswap" tactics, I know that there are still some novice users who use these services to find related sites and it is for those users that the webring model seems to work.