Themestream Self-Published Content Site Closing Down

Posted on April 15, 2001

The Themestream site will be closing down. The site was founded in August 1999 by executive from Primedia and Netscape. Themestream was known for its large network of self-published contributors known as "enthusiasts." The site had over 40,000 contributors.

The New York Post reports that the site was shutting down due to financial difficulties. It appears unlikely that the contributors will receive any final payments.

The following is a letter from Themestream to its contributors published on April 11, 2001.

Dear Contributor,
Due to the current business climate, the Themestream web service will close its doors on April 13, 2001. It has always been our pleasure to serve you. And it hurts us to tell you that we are ceasing all business operations.
Themestream is in the process of trying to sell some or all of its assets and negotiating with it's secured creditors. Although we won't know the outcome of these negotiations until they are complete, we believe it is very unlikely that we will be able to pay any other creditors- including contributors. We will inform you if the situation changes. Otherwise, you should assume you will not receive any further payments from us.
We will continue to abide by our privacy policy and will take all reasonable steps to safeguard any of your personal information stored on our servers. If you do not have back up copies of your articles, please go to the site - http://www.themestream.com -- and copy and paste the text of your articles into a document on your computer. Please do this by the end of the day of April 12, 2001. In the meantime, we have stopped accepting new article submissions.
Lastly, if you have any questions, please direct them to: questions@themestream.com
We hope that you have benefited from the Themestream service as much as we have from your contributions. We wish you continued success in publishing.
Sincerely,
The Themestream Team

Unfortunately, it does seem extremely unlikely that the contributors will be paid. It was an ambitious project that did not succeed.