h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Firstly, thanks as always for waiting so patiently for news about the future of H2G2. I’m delighted to announce that we now have a successful bid to take H2G2 into its next stage.

As always with H2G2 the successful bid was unique. It’s a joint bid put together by three parties: Robbie Stamp, h2g2c2 ('The h2g2 Community Consortium') and a company called Noesis Systems Ltd.

As many of you know, Robbie was a very close friend of Douglas Adams and, along with Douglas, is the original founder of H2G2 back in 1999. The H2G2 Community and the site are very much close to his heart.

h2g2c2 - 'The h2g2 Community Consortium' - have shown great energy and a real passion for continuing the very best traditions of H2G2. They will make sure the Community is always at the heart of everything H2G2 does.

Noesis, headed by Brian Gunner Larholm, are an established social media company that specialises in online communities.

Robbie will be chairman of the new organisation that is formed out of this joint bid. So in a sense H2G2 is 'going home' or at least back into the care of people who history tells me will love and nurture the site. My feeling is that the site will be in safe hands for the future.

Robbie will be making a more detailed statement on H2G2 soon and there will also be a FAQ page that will hopefully deal with a lot of the questions you may have.

We're in a handover phase now - a 'transitionary' period - as we prepare to hand over the site completely to its new owners, editorially and technically. There are also some legal matters to be sorted out. So I’d ask you to bear with this us during this time and you’ll be updated with more specifics as and when. We'll aim to make the transition as effortless and smooth as possible but there's bound to be the odd ripple and the odd glitch. It just wouldn't be H2G2 if there wasn't.

In the meantime, please continue to not do as you have always not done i.e, Don't Panic!

N.B. You may be interested to know the following. In order to approve this bid a document had to be discussed at the BBC’s Online Direction Group. The document about H2G2 was the 42nd document sent to the group this year.

Many thanks,

Nick Reynolds
Social Media Executive, BBC Online

(sorry, can't come up with anything more erudite just yet).

*sigh of relief*

I think I know what the BBC Online Direction Group decided:

"Out"

Hurrah!

*snoopy dance*

*joins in with the happy dance*

Nice one I don't think we could've hoped for a better outcome really!

How fascinating. Proceed.

RF

This announcement has moved me more than I expected. It's probably also just relief after all that waiting.

Lettuce spray for a smooth transition.

Will there be adverts?

Will we have to pay a fee or are donations expected?

Yay!

What a relief!


lil xx

I hope the consortium committee are hugely proud of themselves, I'm certainly damn proud of them

I also hope that they are ready for the next bit of the battle (cats, for the herding of).

The waiting really was the painful bit wasn't it?... makes ten years of waiting for the hoovery one pale somewhat in significence....