Before Radio UserLand was called Radio UserLand, it was called Pike. I've been a Radio user since the day it was born and I've enjoyed the power and flexibility it has afforded me over the last four or five years.

It's been my pleasure to create this manual and I've learned much more about Radio than I ever would have had I not determined to create this weblog.

It's been especially gratifying to get feedback from people. Trying to help out where I can, either here or in the Radio forums, is something I enjoy.

However, with Steve Kirk's announcement today that he is no longer UserLand's Radio product manager, I see the writing on the wall. I've seen it for some time actually. UserLand is obviously focused on Manila, not Radio. The day UserLand hired Steve Kirks was the day I started the manual. And today, I am ending the manual. Radio was like the unfortunate child that showed so much promise but was unfortunately abandoned due to it's father's health crisis. The father tried to give Radio to a good home but the new parent's were more interested in Radio's big brother, Manila. Radio stumbled along with a minimum of updates and attempts by Steve Kirks to drum up a developer community to bring Radio in league with many of its weblogging brethren did little to achieve many of the items on the community's wish list.

Steve did a great job! Don't get me wrong. Steve single handedly moved Radio forward at a time when it could have easily remained frozen in time. Rather, Steve led improvement in commenting, trackbacks, code bugs, aggregator functionality, user support, and more. Despite his attempts though, I got the impression that UserLand was content to keep Radio hobbling along just enough. That's fine but I'm interested in platforms that are moving forward, not remaining stagnant or tended to "just enough."

Thanks to all my readers. It's been a wonderful experience. I wish you well with your Radio UserLand weblogging. Radio is still the little desktop publishing engine that could so keep on using it for your blog if you like it! I, however, have moved on and now it's time to officially close the doors here. I will leave the site standing, yet frozen. There will be no more updates to this blog.

If you would like to follow my other endeavors, I invite you read my personal weblog, Donovan's Run, a WordPress powered site. I'm also available for web site development.. see my business site, Getting Sites Built. Become the Media (home of this manual) is going to become more active this year so keep tuned in to that site. And finally, I'm experimenting with thoughtStreams using the OPML Editor, which has been lots of fun. Check it out.

Thanks for reading! - Your Host, Donovan Watts.