Good Bye Flashforum

I was thinking about what I did within the last couple of days for such a long time already. But I decided it was about time to do this now. If you don’t feel the love and the passion for something anymore and also are not able to justify any time you put into it (not to speak about money), then – I think – it is about time.

The Flashforum and FFK (the Flashforum Konferenz) have been a big part of my life from 1999 up to 2010 (and longer even). It was the home of many people in the German Flash community. With over 115000 members, over 266000 threads with over 1703000 posts and sometimes between 1500 and 2000 people in the forum at once, it was a platform for everybody who was in the Flash-, Design- and Web-Scene in Germany.

From 2001 to 2010 we also organised an event for and around this community with sometimes around 500–600 visitors and even 1500, when we did the Flashforum and Studio 8 Tour in 2005.

The Flashforum never was just about Flash and questions about how to do something or Tutorials and alike. It was about the people as much as about things left and right from Flash. Many talented designers used it as a tool, many careers started in and with the Flashforum and many friendships had been build during all those years.

But if something wonderful like this slowly becomes something that is more like ball and chain, then you should better stop it and take all the good memories with you.

This is what I did now after thinking about it for month, if not years. I was thinking about the possibility to keep the content alive at least, but up to now I haven’t found a good and cost effective solution. Therefore I made a backup of the database and the project folder and downgraded the whole server to a simple one-page website.

With a happy-sad feeling I say good bye to you, my good old Flashforum. Happy to have so many lovely memories. Sad to let you go.

Thanks for a fantastic time and all the wonderful people I got to know because of you!