I awoke in the middle of the night with a profound feeling of having the world pass me by. I could just feel myself being left adrift with no oar, no sail, no compass to guide me. The feeling became so intense I knew I was not dreaming. I knew, instead, that things were happening and I had better do something or they would happen without me. As usual I can't do much in the real world until I have checked out what is going on with my Internet World and sure enough I discovered why I was having such uneasy feelings. The tide had rolled over me and I was stranded offshore while the beach was rapidly being covered by waves and foam.

Newsvine, my favorite, if not only, social/news site either has or soon will change its style forever. The first thing that happened to me when I entered Newsvine's Classic Interface was to find the world I thought I knew so well was either full of glitches, gone crazy or collapsing upon itself. Pop up advertising was showing up where none should be. A few members seemed to be playing pranks on each other. One told me there was a race or game on to head the Leaderboard. For the first time in my Newsvine life I found myself reporting infractions, calling out advertisers, reporting comments and articles that were clearly beyond the Code of Honor and/or the User Agreement. I almost put a member on ignore which would be a sin in my point of view. I asked a member or two for an explanation of what was going on but they came up short.

Something told me I should flip over to Newsvine Beta and see if that was affected as well. Wallah! I found changes were taking place. My Beta had all of its whistles and bells working. I even discovered that beyond Beta's rather bland Interface there were some pretty nifty utilities available.  I discovered some things that had bothered members about the change had been taken care of. Even earnings is still there if you dig down into the right channel. Best of all every button, every icon, ever mouse over provided a result when propery clicked. I am anxious to look over the entire site and learn. Get smarter. I wonder if anything happens when you right click? Are there any right click objects there?

This morning, when I returned, I found Classic was back to its recent normal but I also noticed the paucity of activity and the fact that some of my favorite Authors seemed to be missing. Some that I confer with almost daily seemed silent or even hidden somewhere beneath the surface of my favorite, old, news site. Was Newsvine dwindling? As luck would have it I flipped over to Beta and this morning, with a little Help guidance and a somewhat educated guess at navigation, I have found Beta fully functional and ready for work. I have even had enough time to dig around and find some neat features. I also discovered a little more about what the new Nations are about. I don't fully comprehend their purpose or capabilities but my search through the Nations set up so far show me there are a lot of possibilities. I have also discovered a vast wasteland of Nations that were created when they were transferred from Classic to Beta. They are a wasteland full of salvageable ideas and possibly members that we, the purveyors of Newsvine Community building can take advantage of. Just watch what happens! Thanks for being here.