An Apology to Feature & Follow participants…

As the Feature & Follow meme has gained momentum it has become startlingly obvious that it is very hard to maintain. Even with two bloggers hosting the meme it is almost impossible to get to people that sign up for the #FF list in a timely fashion. The wait has almost exceeded a year and by my expectations if we went by the current list, people that sign up today would have to wait until 2013 to be featured.

What does this mean?

It means that we have to go through at least five to ten people before we send a save the date email to see if the blogs that signed up are still blogging. Six months to a year does strange things to a blog. Having to do this every week has made us lose track of things and become rather unorganized. So, after a bit of discussion Alison and I have decided to change things up with the #FF meme.

This is where the apology comes in.

I am so sorry for everyone on the list that we have not been able to get to. If you have waited months to be the feature, we sincerely apologize. We did not intend for things to get so out of control, but the underlying matter is that if we can't manage this meme well, we shouldn't be managing it at all and would have to pass it on, or close it up.

We do not want to close it up.

The change.

After thinking it over, we've decided that the #FF will go back to its roots and in a lottery system the Feature will be chosen. You can only be the feature once, so if a past feature is chosen we will pick again. Mistakes do happen though, so we would ask if you are chosen twice to please speak up.

Thank you for making this meme so very popular. We look forward to doing it for another 100 weeks..