When we started Maine Communities Online in 1998, we hoped to create a vibrant place online where Maine's community groups would share information with their members, with each other and with the community at large. At the time, community groups found it difficult and expensive to create a Web site on their own. We were able to offer these groups a way to create their first Web site without cost or special skills. As with most things on the Internet, however, the area of Web pages has undergone rapid change. Web page-creation tools have become simple, widely available and in many cases free.
Many sites offer free Web-page hosting, and more people are now creating Web pages as a hobby.
As a result, the vast majority of Maine's community groups now have their own sites on the Web. They have done so without Maine Communities Online, or by starting here and then later moving off on their own. In addition, many of the groups who built sites within Maine Communities Online have not maintained or updated those pages. For all these reasons, Maine Communities Online has not met its promise as a vibrant hub of community information. Access will be completely shut off as of September 30, 2001.