Bayosphere.com's homepage was replaced this afternoon by a redirect that sends users to sf.backfence.com/bayarea, and founder Dan Gillmor sent an email to members announcing that Backfence.com has "offered to continue our operations here under their wing." Gillmor will continue to write a blog there.
Backfence has more of a hyperlocal focus, and it will be interesting to see how it evolves the site and whether the Bayosphere community sticks with it. In his note, Gillmor said "One of the lessons I learned in 2005, when we were all exploring some new ideas about bottom-up media, was that we didn't have sufficient focus on the Bay Area. Although our conversations (some might call them arguments) about Big Issues were interesting, they ultimately may not have served us as well as the ones where we had a personal and more immediate stake in the situation."
Backfence, a project founded by Susan DeFife and Mark Potts, launched its first sites in northern Virginia last year. It announced today that Merrill Brown is joining its board of directors.