大象传媒

Hello Island Bloggers,

For those who recall the early days of Island Blogging, you鈥檒l know that this year is its fifth anniversary. What began originally in the Argyll and Clyde islands as a project to promote digital literacy has grown to encompass communities in the Northern and Western Isles.

As that digital literacy grew, and the blogosphere in general developed, it has become very easy to set up blogs elsewhere across the web.

Your concerns about Island Blogging鈥檚 technical limitations, House Rules and Terms and Conditions have been noted. At the same time, your patience and support has been greatly appreciated as problems with the blogging engine and spam filter recurred with increasing severity.

In short, five years on, it has become apparent that the site does not best serve your needs and that the technology has reached the end of its natural life.

We are as keen as ever to help you share your personal stories about island life through the 大象传媒 Scotland website and want to take a new approach to share the best material with an ever widening audience online.

As many of you have already found, there are now a number of widely available blogging engines which have superior performance to Island Blogging and, although we would not recommend one above another, they鈥檙e straightforward to set up. We鈥檇 now encourage you to use one of these blogging engines and, over the next few weeks, we鈥檒l be aiming to support you in this.

We look forward to your material continuing to feature prominently on 大象传媒 platforms via our revitalised 大象传媒 Local sites. Additionally, the wealth of images, writing and information which exists in Island Blogging will be kept as an archive, available to future users.

If you have hints and tips for other Island Bloggers on what you鈥檝e found in the wider blogging world, we鈥檇 like to hear them. In the meantime, have a look at the FAQs which will be posted soon and which we hope will answer some of your initial questions.

If you experience any difficulties moving to a new blogging platform please get in touch and we will try to help and advise you through the process.

As this process is rolled out, it would be unfair to accept new bloggers, given that Island Blogging in its current form will not continue.

There will be updates as things develop; any comments, queries or suggestions can be left here (blogging engine allowing) or e-mail: islandblogging@bbc.co.uk