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Blogging is Dead - BlenderNation moves to Twitter

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We've measured that our readers are getting a shorter attention span - most articles aren't fully read anymore and people just click the links. Without a doubt, much of this can be attributed to consumption of new media such as Facebook and Twitter.

As of today, we will be adjusting our publication policy to our audience and move away from publishing longer articles - BlenderNation will now exist purely as short messages on Twitter. Accordingly, we have adapted our website to now display the latest Tweets only.

Our news articles will now be published @BlenderNation, and we have created a list @BlenderNation/Community that will include other interesting Twitter streams from the Blender community. If you haven't already, just sign up to twitter and follow us.

For the editors, this moves makes it MUCH easier to quickly post Blender news. I'm sure this will mean an increased news flow. Twitter FTW!

Update: yeah that's right - April 1st is over now ;-)

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

111 Comments

  1. So I guess people won't read this article either and just click the Twitter links...I liked reading the articles. I guess I'll try it out for a few days before I complain, I don't right to complain or praise it before I try it out for a bit anyways.

  2. Got me there Bart. I was really afraid my fav blog was dead. Luckaly the responses lowered my heartbeat. Got me by the nose.

  3. I just got in to blender towards the middle of last year. I didn't know that they did April fools, so this scared the hell out of me at first... but thanks to you all comments I can sleep well tonight xD.

  4. lol i saw it and was like what!? now we are rewarding short attention spans?
    i got punished for it in school having ADHD

    glad it's just a joke, i refuse to "tweet"
    and strongly believe it's a fad like pet rocks

  5. Revolt_Randy on

    Had me going there for a minute!!! As always, I read the entire article...hahahaha. I just woke up, and didn't realize what day it was yet.... Anyhow, I'm off to hatch some devious plans of my own, now that I know what day it is....... :D

  6. Lol if I hadn't seen these comments and was 1st to read this (and comment) I'd have fell for that completely!!! nice one! :D

  7. April fool, but let me add my vote that I hope this does not happen ever!
    Who knows.... gmail was also born in 1st april

  8. I have to say I was fooled until I read the comments. I hope this is a AF joke. The terror truely did set in!

  9. I'm spanish. Here in Spain April's fools is in December 28th, so I had no way of knowing this was just a joke!. I guess I was the most fooled! =)

  10. "Blender to join forces with AutoDesk"...

    The until now free 3D modelling software Blender 3D, has now been acquired by the worlds largest
    software vendor of creative software for professional artists & architects worldwide, this doesn't
    come without a price as the community was what made Blender big in the first place, we're
    talking with:

    Ton Roosendaal, honorary doctorate & founder of the Blender Foundation says to BBC News:

    It's time to let Blender grow into it's true potential. We've got fantastic programmers that works
    for hardly any pay at all, it's time to reap what the community sow, so we have struck a deal
    with one of the biggest vendors of creative software anywhere, and from now on - programmers
    and artists alike, will have the opportunity of getting paid for their hard work, after all - this is
    just fair.

    BBC: But Blender was Open Source software, does this mean that the community now have
    to pay a license fee for using Blender?

    Blender is still Open Source, meaning - the source itself can be modified by anyone of the license
    holders who wishes to add, contribute and modify the code, it still have to be approved by
    community members working for AutoDesk, i.e. me, Brecht, Cambell and a few other initiates.
    This is truly a fantastic opportunity to watch Blender grow into the big league.

    BBC: By "Big League" you mean Maya, 3dstudio Max etc.?

    Yes, Blender will not compete against these product, but be an valuable cross platform asset
    that can for example be used to convert between the formats, an unique animation tool, and
    have certain modelling features that the two other ones doesn't have, and it will also serve
    as an affordable alternative to getting into 3D modelling & Animation in the first place, so this
    is good for everyone.

    BBC: Is there a price tag for a license yet? And what will happen to all the previous versions of
    Blender that people have already downloaded?

    This isn't a problem, people can still continue to use the earlier versions of Blender, even the Alpha
    release of the new Blender 2.5, which will be seen as a beta-test, users of Maya & Max have gotten
    accustomed to privileged access to beta versions too anyway, so why should Blender be any different.
    We've not set a price tag yet, but it will most likely be 20-30% of what Maya cost, so it'll still be an
    affordable entry into the world of 3D.

    BBC: But aren't you afraid of the community reactions to this? Won't this upset a lot of the users
    who fought passionately for this software to remain open to everyone?

    It's still open to everyone, just not in the sense we're used to, it's still Open Source, but you are required
    to acquire a license to use it commercially, that's how we started it back in the days win NaN as well, users
    could freely download the software, and for a fee - release a few extra functions plus use it commercially as
    well. This is a vital move to get pay for the programmers, which of course also is a part of the community.

    BBC: Thank you Dr. Roosendaal, and we wish you good luck with the Blender & AutoDesk merger, hopefully
    the Blender community will feel the same way.

    I'm sure they will, and thank you.

  11. JoOngle--blender is open source, and because of the GPL, it would have to remain open source.
    which pretty much makes it not interesting to autodesk.

  12. I was worried to you really scared me this twitter thing is like cancer its gross i actually beleaved for a minute that you guy's were getting corrupt in my opinion twitter is for losers with no brains that are over social or undersocial depends on how you look at it

  13. Bad try, actually. :D I had even forgotten it was April 1st. But when I saw "Blogging is dead" I thought "who the hell wrote this article?". And then I saw "BlenderNation moves to Twitter" and thought "uhhh April fools!! :P".

  14. oh damn.. we all have been somewhat April fooled. We all believed this is an actual joke, and that was Bart's intention. But BN is ACTUALLY moving onto Twitter. Now THAT surprised me =/

  15. Is this really an april fools? The homepage already has the twitter feed up! I really don't like this at all, I love reading the articles! Or is this just another experiment like the the community news thingy?

  16. alalo unless your telling the truth shut up i am already freaked out enough as it is i am waiting for bart to varify that its all a bad dream :(

  17. Nowherebrain/JustinBarrett on

    I'm glad this is an april fools joke, because I was PISSED!...seriously...I was thinking is the whole FRICKING world retarded?...lol ahh well I guess the joke is on me, and BTW: I hate twitter, facebook, wer-kenn-wen(German take on my space), and, of course, myspace.

  18. Hey Bart that one was great! Very creative and a nice joke. I really though you're experimenting with Twitter.

  19. Heh. Nice one this year. Almost plausible. To the whiners: you can only spoof that Ton is moving to Autodesk, or Blender is bought by Houdini so many times.

  20. lol, I can't believe I actually believed it until I scrolled to the comments! :D

    Twitter is so over-hyped. -.-"

  21. O_O
    Ack, thank you, first poster! I completely forgot it was the first of April, so I almost deleted the feed from my RSS aggregator in an angry rage!
    *shakes fist at Bart*

  22. You got me till I read comments. Actually I thought it would be great idea since I only check titles from rss reader and then click links.

  23. Hmmm... Almost had me, 'til I read the comments. One observation, tho.

    Blender users are unlikely to move to twitter for anything, since it is doubtful that a twit could use Blender. It requires thinking, something the twitter users don't seem to be able to muster.

    Just a thought.

    Happy April Fools' Day.

  24. I`m well aware of what day is today but yet you fooled me for like about 3 minutes. The worst 3 minutes of my life :D

  25. Well, to be fair, I came to blendernation today thinking, "I wonder what Blendernation is doing for April fools' Day," so I was ready for this...

  26. differentsmoke on

    I must say I also came to blendernation specially to see what you guys had done this year, and I thought it was great. To actually have external links coordinated. Beautiful.

    It did take me a while to find where to post this, though.

  27. frank_robernson on

    I read them everyday - so I' ant fazed if no one else is or not.

    SMILES - APRIL FOOLS ONLY WORKS UNTIL MID DAY- Twitter sucks, why not keep it on the site you guys pay for!Wasting money is fun on hosting. hahaha you should asked if you can destroy the bird and make it a blender Icon bahahaha.

  28. this article was too long. so many words, my head hurt. couldn't you have just said:

    we've gone twitter. follow us for tweets. c u.

    or something like that please? Time is money, gentlemen!

  29. April Fool's day is over and the Twitter stuff is still on.
    Maybe it wasn't a joke after all. Maybe it was Bart's ingenious way of realizing his evil plan to twitterize Blendernation after all, without causing an immediate outrage.
    :D

  30. Had me! Till I remembered what the date was. XD

    For a moment I was like, "OHHH NOOOOO!", striking a dramatic pose and everything. Had me worried for about 60seconds then.

    I was like, "Twitter?... ew. :s".

  31. Had me going yesterday. I didn't even click the article. I just assumed the date was a coincidence since a lot of people seem to be switching to Twitter and started looking for an alternative to Blender Nation.

    I only came back today because I saw yesterday that the community news section was unaffected. Otherwise the twitter page would have been just an extra click on the way to that particular page.

  32. Wow I totally believed it till I read the comments!!!! :(
    I was thinking of commenting about how that would suck cause we would lose the archives and searching for stuff and commetns etc, but ok you just April Fooled me :P

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