We’ve all heard about the surprising news from yesterday. Multiply has officially announced that it will be shutting down its blog service which had been the core of Multiply all these years as it continues its transition into becoming a marketplace. The decision which was announced directly by CEO Stefan Magdalinski immediately sparked strong reactions from bloggers who have had accounts on Multiply for years. Is it the right move for Multiply to shut down its blog service and switch entirely to e-commerce?

Let’s take a look at Multiply’s condition. Multiply was set up in December 2003 as a blog platform. Of course, this was not unrelated to the blog euphoria at the time. At the beginning of that year, Blogger was acquired by Google and turned it into the hottest Internet property at that time. Multiply owners certainly sought a similar pay off. Aside from the blog, Multiply also h as asocial network which allowed members to interact with each other, including sharing photos and videos. Unfortunately the growth of Multiply in America failed to reach the expected figures.

Naturally, to maintain a blog platform such as this requires a lot of capital. Multiply several times received investment funds (totaling $26.6 million according to CrunchBase), but it still hadn’t been able to deliver a significant return from its premium blogging service. Instead, the top line bloggers at Multiply were using the service as a free marketplace. The numbers then grew and began to dominate Multiply and the majority were living outside of the United Stated. They tend to be from Southeast Asian Countries especially Indonesia and The Philippines.

Actually, this is the thing that discourage me from trying to open a blog on Multiply. On the other side, this people who sell things are seen by Multiply as a new revenue to gain profit. Multiply goes with the flow and slowly transformed into an e-commerce company. This pivot step costs quite a lot. In 2010, Multiply agreed to be acquired by Naspers so it can get fresh fund to expand. In early 2011, the Multiply Commerce feature appeared by focusing in the two Southeast Asia countries mentioned above.

Multiply is now an e-commerce company which provides marketplace service with a blogging service on the side.

Since the establishment of the Commerce service, I see a disharmony between Multiply and bloggers. The case of the takeover of http://indonesia.multiply.com subdomain as Multiply Indonesia’s website without any prior notification to the owner gave a sign that blog is no longer an important part.

Although for the last two years, Multiply leader always gave a statement that they will keep on supporting the blogging service, we honestly think that one day, the blogging service will be closed. The logic is simple, a marketplace service, which brings income, must subsidize the blogging service and its maintenance cost has lessen the company’s income. In the end, the bomb was dropped last Monday and blogger must go by December 1, 2012.

So, is this the right step? I incline to say, “Yes”, but the execution is not right. The ways taken by Multiply’s leader to suddenly close down the blogging service certainly brings negative reaction from the public.

Various opinions are expressed on the social media, from panic to disappointment expressions. Although Multiply is not only available in Indonesia, we already accepted that the service is big and it gains income from it. There are more elegant ways to please Indonesian people in facing such “crisis”. This kind of announcement is so much like mass layoff in a company. Something common in the West but does not fit with the norms in the East.

There are several ways that supposedly done by Multiply’s management to suppressed the disappointment. First is to hold a meet up with Multiply blogger community. The logic behind the closing must be explained, especially in relation with operational fee. Here, Multiply can hear feedback from bloggers, as a part of Multiply’s stakeholder, about the the best solution. Probably, it won’t satisfy everyone but at least, there is an understanding between both parties. Althogh blogger is not the “owner”, but they feel that they “own” Multiply and be a part of this service for years.

Unfortunately, looking at previous experience, I conclude that there is already a “gap” between Multiply’s management and blogger which made this unrealistic to be done.

Moreover, on yesterday’s announcement was not mentioned about how to export postings, comments or photos to other platforms. Although it is promised to be provided, if the preparation is done from the beginning, it should be there when the announcement is out so user can immediately exports their “rights”. Of course, Multiply’s management cannot assume that all its users are tech savvy that understand such technical things. The announcement may be rushed and the next step hasn’t been prepared.

The story of the closing of blogging service by Multiply can be a lesson for us on how to treat user as a part of stakeholders. Logically, the closing of the blogging service has solid fundamental but the execution must be done to elegantly and be more acceptable.

[image source: Flickr/owenwbrown]