I’ve been kicking this post around in my head for quite some time, mostly because it’s hard to write (as in finding the right words AND having to force myself to write it). This will be my last post for Colaspot. I’d say this is the end of Colaspot, but Jonathan has assured me he will do his best to post from time to time. In other words, it’s not the end of Colaspot, but it is the end of a regularly updated Colaspot that you’ll want to visit on a regular basis (though I suppose those days have been over for several months).

To fully understand my departure, we must go back to the fall of last year. Having lots of free time on my hands due to the inability to find a job, I needed an outlet. My job search led me to the discovery that there isn’t a Columbia publication designed for a guy like me. You know the demographic I’m referring to – the 20-35 year-old young professional who is interested in the downtown Columbia scene including music, restaurants, and entertainment. At the same time, I wanted this publication to appeal to my friends outside of the Columbia area, which is where pop culture happenings and media reviews (movies, DVDs, TV, music, and video games) fit in. The closest publication I could find to fit this niche was the Free Times. And while the Free Times is a wonderful publication, it is still a little too newsy for my tastes. Not to mention it’s nowhere near geeky enough.

I approached Bryan with this idea, and he seemed to recognize the merit in it despite my vauge description. He recommended I share it with Jonathan, a coworker of his who also shared some of these same interests. More importantly, Jonathan shared my love for writing.

So the three of us (and Ryan Webber, who designed the look of the site) met for lunch in downtown Columbia one day and realized that we were on to something. Our biggest obstacle, however, was the fact that we had no budget and no experience with printing a publication. You see how a website was the most logical choice.

This is where we made our biggest mistake. Instead of filling in the blank spots and making a more concrete game plan, we jumped in headfirst and launched the site in October. The reason I say this was our biggest mistake is because we never truly locked in on the type of posts we needed. While one post would be about the business of start-ups, another would be about the latest Mario game (that one was usually mine, of course). This gave the site a sort of schizophrenic feel that remains to this day, but I suppose we have found our niche to some extent – a site for working geeks like us. However, our lack of manpower failed to truly capture the downtown Columbia scene. If this site had more coverage of local entertainment, you wouldn’t be able to read this right now because your face would have been rocked off.

After our first week of posts, I was shocked by our numbers. After only a few days, we were receiving hundreds of hits (the exact number escapes me, but I believe it was in the 200’s). I began to realize that Colaspot could be more successful than I originally thought. Suddenly, I realized this fun side project could grow to something even more. If our numbers continued to rise, we could sell ads to local retailers, which would allow us to pay contributors, which would increase our number of posts, which would increase our traffic, which would allow for even more ad sales. Excitement overwhelmed me.

As with everything in life, problems began. Due to major life changes, all three of us suddenly had less time to post. We knew we needed a bigger staff, which led to several guest contributors. But it’s hard to get people to commit to more frequent contributions when they’re doing it for free.

Then, due to major life changes, which they’ve spoken of here and on their blogs, Bryan and Jonathan disappeared. For the record, I’m not mad at them for this. I understand family and job requirements come before a website. And I’m glad they’re getting their professional lives together in a way that will make them happy. So, as I’m sure many of you noticed, this led to me doing 95% of the posts for several months.

Seeing as it’s hard to have multiple posts each day with only one person writing, our numbers drastically declined. I was trying to put up at least one post a day, but I knew that wasn’t enough. Then something happened that changed everything. I realized that even though I had the ability to be the lone poster, I didn’t have the desire.

You see, Colaspot was supposed to be so much more than just another blog. And seeing it sit here with hardly any updates breaks my heart. I can’t do this on my own, and as I mentioned before, writers are hard to find when no money is being generated. So it comes down to this: Do I want to continue Colaspot with not even half the quality I originally envisioned for it? Is it all or nothing? I guess you’ve figured out my verdict.

I’ve done my best to explain why I’m walking away. I guess some of you will interpret the reason as pride. And if not wanting the integrity of your love project to be lessened is pride, then I suppose I’m guilty. I’ve been contemplating this post for weeks. I wanted to post this a few weeks ago, but it was too close to April 1st to be taken seriously. But this is no joke.

When your passion is writing, it’s impossible to give it up cold turkey. I’m sure I’ll be seeking another outlet to meet this need. Colaspot has taught me that I enjoy sharing my love of video games in my writing, so perhaps I’ll resume my 1up.com blog. Of course, I don’t know how much my video game rantings interested you few faithful readers out there, so I might have to find a new audience. I also love humor writing, something a brief stint on my college newspaper taught me. Perhaps I will resume work on Atomic Soapbox, my former blog that sacrificed itself at a young age so Colaspot could be born. As soon as I decide, I’ll do an update post and plug my new venture. A lot of you might not care, but a few of you might make the jump to my new project. And keep in mind you can always email me. In fact, if you’d like a more personal goodbye, feel free to email me after finishing this post. It’d be nice to know someone out there gives a crap that I’m leaving…otherwise, I’ve wasted a lot of words.

I want to thank all of you who had kind words about the site and who continued to read even when posts were at a trickle. And sorry we never got the comments feature up and running.

If I’ve taken anything away from this, it’s the satisfaction that deep down inside, I know this idea would have succeeded if a few circumstances were different. And who knows? Maybe one day I can pursue this plan again and succeed in the way I want to succeed. It will always be my dream.

The fall of ‘05 was an amazing time for a variety of reasons. I settled into married life in a new city . I finally found a job. But as crazy as it may sound, I’ll always remember it for the launch of this site and that brief period of excitement when I realized people are actually interested in what I have to say.

Thanks for everything. I’ll see you around.