Evolution of California Disasters Group

California Disasters avatar image captured the morning of April 18, 1906. Image courtesy of California Historical Society.

California Disasters was born on May, 18, 2007 on Yahoo Groups as a figment of my inspired cogitations while driving through the western Mojave Desert near Mojave, California. My then-girlfriend Krissa Klein's familiarity with and overall tech-savvy made it happen over the phone and the rest is now history (thanks Krissa!).

I was late to the game of the internet and social networking and missed the old talk groups and got in on Yahoo Groups during what was perhaps the beginning of their decline or end of their peak in 2005. I have since stuck it out as the Yahoo brand has declined over the subsequent decade.

Now, with large parts of the Yahoo franchise just now this week sold to Verizon, I am forced to take stock of the current situation. We all know that Yahoo became Yahell at some point (probably when current CEO Marissa Mayers' team degenerated Yahoo Groups into the cluster fuck known as Neo Groups as the company's focus and priorities drifted elsewhere and the quality of the Yahoo Groups product declined.  I have stuck it out but have also felt restless and moved into other social networking platforms in order to improve the California Disasters experience and brand and move it past Yahoo Groups.

I consider Twitter the current home of California Disasters while Yahoo Groups' California Disasters formulation remains the second option as it is the social network in which the most members actively contribute posts although Twitter is almost caught up to it. In third is the Facebook formulation of California Disasters while the Reddit subreddit CaliforniaDisasters is what I consider the fourth-place formulation of the group.

I invite each of you reading this blog post to join one or more of these California Disasters formulations immediately and stretch your horizons and be part of California Disasters' evolution into the future as at some point Yahoo Groups will be permanently shut down as has long been anticipated as happened to Myspace's Groups service.