Christian Hofstädtler, Michael Prokop and I launched TitanPad.com more than 6 years ago. The idea for the project stemmed from the need to provide users of EtherPad.com, ourselves included, a safe haven to move to after the rather abrupt shutdown notice given after AppJet's acquisition by Google.
We believed in the idea of real-time & hassle-free collaborative text editing and wanted to give access to this new way of working on content collaboratively.
In the years following the shutdown of the original EtherPad.com we hoped that a community would form around the EtherPad codebase which would allow us to foster & grow the service in the coming future. However, while there was a rewrite of the service in node.js, it was lacking the maturity and features of the "legacy" EtherPad codebase.The availability of etherpad-lite also meant that the now dubbed "legacy" Etherpad.com codebase was doomed to obscurity.
Six years later, the situation, from an FOSS-perspective, is unchanged. etherpad-lite still lacks features and etherpad-legacy remains unmaintained. The risk that an unmaintained application poses is non-negligeable and compounded by the success of Titanpad.com. Over the years, we invested considerable amounts of time and money to keep the site running and support its users.
Although the resources needed to keep the site running could be covered by crowd-funding, the unmaintained application code is not something that can be easily fixed. Without steady development & improvement the project is unsustainable. The underlying technologies of the Web are in constant evolution and we cannot keep TitanPad up to Web standards.
To prevent getting left out in the rain by an incompatible browser update in the future, we therefore decided to do a graceful shutdown of the project and give all of you a chance to migrate your data, teams and workflows to other services.
We can't give recommendations on which service to move to since the needs of all of you differ hugely. For some, the data privacy aspect was the most important one. For others, the ability to create private subdomains.
Here are two sites which have compiled lists of alternatives to TitanPad.com:
Our schedule for the shutdown is as follows
- 1st May 2017: All pads will be made read-only, no new pads can be created.
- 31st Dec 2017: Titanpad.com will shut down.
Best wishes from all of us, and thanks for all the pads!
So sorry to hear this! Thanks for all your work, and for the long notice to give us time to export what is needed. Titan pads were great.
ReplyDeleteDang, you were my favorite pad.
ReplyDelete:____(
ReplyDeletety u for your work
we have developed lots of social projects using titanpad, it was a new form of relation for the communities.
We are very grateful for providing this tool. We will always be your fans.
Thanks for your great work. A lot of social movements have developed their docs with you. Proud on yourself
ReplyDeleteThank you for your great service, salute!
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DeleteYour service was really useful during university for me and my colleagues. Thanks and all the best!
ReplyDeleteMy students pofitted lot from Titan Pad. I, as an EFL teacher, am really thankful to you for this great tool.
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ReplyDeleteFirst: Thanks for your service! I used private and in school for my students and most of them are really surprised what is possible to cooperate.
ReplyDeleteSecond: I am crying.
I'm very sad that this is ending, but I wholly understand and support your reasons. Thank you for what you've done for so many of us.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your service! As an aspiring writer, with one of my best editors being international, this has helped me a lot. Best wishes.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! I truly enjoyed using it for synchronous elearning activities with my students. The learning was effective and my students truly enjoyed the colours, the accessibility and the joy of being connected with their team members during group discussion.... All the best to the team!!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the great work you did!
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your great work and support. It was very helpful for our projects. Of course I understand your reasons, thank you for giving explanations and time to move. Best wishes for you.
ReplyDeleteThank you guys for your hard work. Titanpas was very helpful to me and my friends. You guys should try out some other ideas, keep up the GREAT work. All the best for you guys!!
ReplyDeleteThank you for all the work you've done. You really cannot imagine how much solidarity, hard work, and real bottom-up solutions started on titanpad for us. We remain very thankful to everyone in your team! Solidaritat from Barcelona.
ReplyDeleteGents, thanks for this wonderful service! You we're the tool that facilitated our start-up. What ever your next adventure.... Keep rockin!
ReplyDeleteGoodBye and thank you for the fish, sweeties :_) I will never forget you and your job.
ReplyDeleteLot of kisses
Thanks!
ReplyDeletewhat a pity. I used titanpad a lot for writing and co-writing songs. loved the timeline especially to watch the songs grow. Thanks a lot!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant work! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for Titanpad, it helped us a lot !
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for Titanpad! We really enjoyed using the service.
ReplyDeleteThanks for Titanpad... I`ve loved it.. Working with pupils or students...telling this giant tool to many other teachers - always looking for free possibilities to work with...
ReplyDeleteWe`ll miss titanpad enourmosly... :-(
first: Thanks guys... a lot...very much
ReplyDeletesecond: your are incredible! and your work was (is and will be ever...) BRILLIANT
3) it's a pity. The best way to learn a grou to do a collaborative work.
4) All my best for you. It's very sad...
Thank you very much for your service!
ReplyDeleteThanks for having built and maintained this! It was my go-to tool for any kind of group work and collaborative projects at uni for quite a while. Rest in peace, Titanpad.
ReplyDeleteYou did good, son, REAL good. Maybe even the best.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your work, my students and I will miss you. You've helped us working on collaborative skills development.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your work as well!! Here in Spain loads of groups and movements used titanpad for our collaborative projects. We are very grateful, we wish we could have helped...
ReplyDeleteIt s a pitty to see it going down. Thanks so much!
ReplyDelete1st: Thanks. It will never hurt to say it too many times. Thanks.
ReplyDelete2nd: Is it possible to keep it running with a small annual payment for each domain?
3rd: being possible or not, you're awesome. Best of luck in your new endeavours. :)
Why do you not try a CROWDFUNDING?
ReplyDeleteI think there are many organizations and people wishing to back your project.
yes i agree
DeleteSo how can we help
ReplyDeleteJe suis professeur d'histoire en France et je regrette cette fermeture, c'était un outil pratique que j'utilisais avec mes élèves.
ReplyDeleteI have been using Titanpad over the last few years regularly on a variety of projects and it has become a companion that will be sorely missed. Gratitude for what you have offered to all of us!
ReplyDeleteWe shall not be de-Titaned! The project must continue, Trump or no Trump!
ReplyDeleteReally sad it is shutting down. Thank you very much for all the work these years, it has been really helpful!
ReplyDeleteMore than sorry to hear that news (just popped up when I opened a new TitanPad).
ReplyDeleteIn my eyes EtherPad, and later projects like TitanPad, have opened the room for real online and real-time collaboration without any hassle.
How can we, as the TitanPad-community, help in concrete ways to rebirth this amazing project (and not let it die)?
Ralf (Dresden, Germany)
PS.: Back in 2009 we wrote collaboratively our business plan on EtherPad - within six (!) hours with collaborators ranging from Dresden to Karlsruhe to China. An awesome experience!!!
Nooo!!! era un sitio excelente :-(
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for all the time, effort and money you put into this. Our organizations really loved it, and hoped to stay with you forever. But we completely understand (from our own experience) the unhappy convergence between unresolved problems and lack of resources to solve them. We wish all of you the very best in your future endeavors!
ReplyDeleteLet it be so...then.
ReplyDeletehas witnessed a growing interest on Google Scholar with 358 citations (citation count 2008-2015: 3, 6, 17, 38, 59, 74, 81, 80). It's a pitty this successful tool should disappear. Can't it be made open source (source forge, github...), adopted by Google, crowd-funded, payable, ...? Anyhow, thank you for the valuable public service in all these years!
ReplyDeleteIt has never been marketed well. It is one of my favorite tools and I wish that there a was a way to crowd source fund it as it is so effective to use when you are having meetings.
ReplyDeleteThank you for all the work you have gone through!
ReplyDeleteI also hope that we as the titanpadcommunity can back this project or support it otherwise in any way or form. Its a glorious tool and the shoutdown would mean a huge loss to the idea of internet functionality.
I hope we can convince you to give this over to the community, but also, you deserve all the best and we respect your decisions.
Wish you the best!
Too bad but thanks for all your efforts!
ReplyDeleteYes. An excellent idea for we TitanPad users to throw in some support for this wonderful platform. I use it for an educational game that is very popular with my high school students. Let me know if I can help.
ReplyDeleteReally sad that a site like this has to be shut down. I used this when i was in school and still use it with my pals, and it holds a place in our hearts still. hopefully you guys can do something to continue this site or make another one that is about the same. but for now, i bid you guys farewell and good luck in your future
ReplyDeleteReally disappointed to just find out of this recent development in the life of TitanPad. This site gave me a chance to blossom online from getting group school-work done to developing blissful, meaningful memories. Like the majority of your users, I bid you a wholehearted farewell and grateful thank you!
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ReplyDeleteSo sorry about titanpad shutdown... I'm using titantpad for teaching notetaking with my master students in the University of Toulouse. What a sad news !!!
ReplyDeleteMany many thanks for your gift to the community and enjoy your future projects !
all the best
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your hard work, it's been a good run. Good luck for your future efforts. :)
DeleteMILLONES DE GRACIAS, Michael, Christian y Michael
ReplyDelete¡TitanPad ha sido taaan útil para organizarnos aquí, en las resistencias del sur de Europa!
¿no hay vuelta atrás? ¿algo que podamos hacer?
¡¡¡Que la vida os sonría!!!
Vielen Dank für Eure großartige Arbeit und den stabilen Service. Für das Debattenprojekt zum Transparenzgesetz.com war die Verfügbarkeit eines stabilen, für viele Akteure ohne Schranken zugänglichen Info-Hub essentiell.
ReplyDeleteVielen Dank und Alles Gute für Euch und Eure weiteren Projekte!
Me and my students love TitanPad!!!! We hope a solution will pop up and your excellent service will continue :)
ReplyDeleteThanks a million for your help in these years.
Toi toi toi
What are the features lacking in Etherpad-lite? I was under the impression that Framasoft had brought it up to speed following their crowdfunding campaign for Framapad, most importantly regarding account management and permission features.
ReplyDeletePlease do contact me. Do not shut down, I'm willing to put down any required money to preserve this working, and improve it's functionality. chris.russo99@gmail.com
ReplyDeletePLEASE keep this open for just another year, guys... my best friends and I are writing a very important script for a movie on here and we need to keep working on it until at least August.... please I'm begging you... I'm only 12 and this website means a lot to me...
ReplyDeleteSwitch over to https://primarypad.com
DeleteSo sorry to hear this. I have benefitted from the use of titanpad and my students have benefitted as well. Thank you for service you have given us.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me sad...
ReplyDeleteI can't even begin to tell you how useful titanpad has been to me over the years. Thank you for all your hard work guys.
ReplyDeleteGrazie ho usato a scuola con studenti , ci siamo divertiti molto ed il lavoro svolto molto piacevole ed istruttivo.Grazie per quello che avete fatto e ci avete dato.Vi auguro la massima fortuna che vi aspetta .
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for providing this very valuable service while you could. I am one of the principle organizers of the Commons Cluster, a group of civil society organizations that participate in sustainable development processes at the United Nations. We used the site for the last 4 or 5 years to draft joint statements that were published and distributed at the UN or read during the plenary meetings of the UN. More recently we have been drafting reports and statements on each of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and recommendations for how they can be implemented while keeping the well-being of all peoples and nature in mind. Thanks again for providing us with this great service that made our work so much easier with people participating from around the world.
Rob Wheeler
UN Representative, Global Ecovillage Network
Commons Cluster
rob.wheeler@ecovillage.org
I wish I have a way to offer other than shutdown. At the Universidad Nacional de Colombia I used it with students as the perfect introduction to the world of crowdediting. They immediately adopted titanpad for a range of their activities, from protest to digital humanities projects. It has been a tremendous help for drafting research projects with fellows scattered in the difficult Colombian geography or in the permanently traffic jammed Bogotá. Thanks to you all.
ReplyDeleteThis was an awesome platform! Myself and other activist colleagues loved TitanPad. It was a great for project management and to conduct conference call meetings. Looking forward to any future platforms you create.
ReplyDeleteSad :-(
ReplyDeleteWhat about the currently developed codebase: https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite
ReplyDeletePossibly a fix? @ https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/
ReplyDeleteWhat Titanpad looks like on my computer: http://imgur.com/huZxDgQl.png
DeleteWhat Etherpad looks like on my computer: http://imgur.com/QlEOQULl.png
I'm not sure if they're even trying.
really sorry that you are shutting down; i really hope you reconsider your decision in view of the fact that this site has benefitted users worldwide.
ReplyDeleteCheck out http://piratepad.net or typewith.me, primarypad.com
ReplyDeleteNothing will change for Titanpad, only for titanpad.com.
I used you well, and you brought life and ideas many times to many of my classes.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
NOOOOO :(
ReplyDeletemodelo educativo CAFAM - caja de compensación familiar Modelo educativo que ofrece alternativas pedagógicas flexibles y lúdicas a través de las cuales jóvenes y adultos se pueden alfabetizar y seguir sus estudios de educación básica y media a parte de ser un lugar donde los niños jóvenes y adultos van y se recrean.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the excellent service you provided free of charge for so long. Really sorry to see you wrap it up. I used it frequently with students. I would subscribe to a paid account if that could keep your service alive, but app development, what you really need, is beyond my current ability to help. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteP.S. primarypad.com is £50/yr for pro account that does what you did for free.
I would like to thank you guys for all the effort you have made all these years. Titanpad has helped me and my colleagues a lot, both for personal and profesional projects.
ReplyDeleteThanks again!