Maybe we can get @samuelorson to give us some backstory...
Samuel, where did the idea of this come from? Were you guys users of other story-based sites before building Sondry?
@alirtariq Of course, thanks for the submit! A few years ago, the guy I co-founded Sondry with went off the "social media grid" so to speak, deleting his Facebook, Twitter, etc. The result - he started having more conversations with strangers, rather than looking at his phone. People would often tell him a story and finish it with, "I've never told that to anyone before." He came to me to try and bring that interaction to the internet and Sondry was born.
Sondry is the first story-based site that we've been users of.
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Hi, I had stories on SONDRY, but it looks like the website is no longer running? What happened? Will it be coming back? I'd like to view my page and my stories.
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@cgeeter I too lost my works on Sondry. That static page which assured us our stories were safe never changed. I contacted Storyvine (their inane attempt at turning a written word site into a video-story-telling site) and they told me they merely provided a tool for the owners. I was given an email of one of the founders and attempted to contact him at anthony@sondry.com but there was no response. So I searched. It turns out his name is Anthony Jacobellis. I never found out how to contact him but I was able to contact the other co-founder whose name is Samuel McDonald (but he seems to go by Samuel Orson now) and he told me that he no longer had any affiliation with Sondry but that he was sorry I had lost my works. I truly feel betrayed by them. Would you be interested in starting a subreddit about this? Contact me at cjwegner@hotmail.com if so.
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@cjwegner for years I’ve wondered about this too. I remember going back onto Sondry intending to continue my story, but was greeted by a message saying something like, “we’re down at the moment, but don’t worry, your stories are safe.” But then it never went back up. I checked over and over hoping to see it online again. I’ve thought about it a lot over the years; I wish I could get it back. So sad. If you were to make a subreddit about it, I suppose I would support it, but what would it be for? To increase awareness about this kind of problem, or…? Do you think they’re stored somewhere or just gone, lost to the void?
Sondry is an interesting take on the crowded media/stories space. It features stories, and sometimes in episodic format, by anonymous writers. The result sort of feels like a blend of Secret and Thought Catalog. Interesting to see where this goes.
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Sondry
The Design of Influence: How to Craft Products that Move People