The State of the Website Address: Year One
by Jason DeShaw

    So here we are, one year into our .com stardom!  Oh what a year it was.  In this article, we'll take a look back at the ups and downs of PsychoNoble's first year and then briefly touch on some things to come.  So sit back and relax, because this is The State of the Website Address: Year One.

    It all started with our big move from a lousy free web-hosting service into the .com world.  We were finally freed from bothersome ads and confining disk space.  We could now fulfill the full potential of our dream... kinda.  It actually took quite some time to get everything transferred over and get things straightened out.  But it was also a good time to organize a somewhat cluttered website and make it more user friendly.  It was also a good time to learn more about the inner workings of a real website.  I mean, just figuring out what the heck an FTP is took me so long.  Sure, I looked pretty dumb not knowing, but now you the viewers have some sweet Freestyle Walking videos to download.  So there!

    Speaking of FSW, our Events section held strong.  Although there were a few events that never got off the ground (pretty much anything with jousting in the title), Freestyle Walking was taken to another level.  Unlike years before, FSW had many updates and also for the first time ever, downloadable videos.  Oh what a great year of FSW it was.  As for the future in Events, I know there is one nearly completed, along with the planned addition of Misc Events.  These will be a variety of Events that aren't necessarily ongoing, but deserve to be labeled as an Event.  Post your ideas now on the Message Boards!

    As you can see, I like to plug the Message Boards a lot.  This is because I believe that having a strong community is necessary for a prosperous website.  Although our Message Boards are anything but popular, they are active and add to the website experience.  Often I post news that isn't found on the main website or ask for people's thoughts on different topics.  It's a great way to get in touch with the people who run this site directly and voice your own opinions of things you want to see.  There are also the great off-topic banters such as Skeletons Vs Zombies which was brought to our attention by our own Brady Lewis.  So if you have time, stop by and say "hi".

    The Crazygame High Score Contest is probably one of the most popular attractions on PsychoNoble.  Crazygame started out just as a game that my friend Simon introduced to me.  Unable to find anything on the net about it, I decided to do it myself.  I reviewed the game and put up a contest.  Little did I know that there were plenty of people out there just waiting to send in their score.  For the first few weeks my inbox filled up with entries.  It has finally started to dwindle now that the high scores are getting insanely high.  I'm barely on my own high score table!  There has also been controversy over the top position which I finally settled.  Crazygame has brought in so much attention, that the author of the game actually sent an email, finally explaining some of the few questions left about the game and revealed a hidden secret.  Butterfly.  We'll leave it at that.

    Just as popular, or even more so believe it or not, is our Pathetic Tributes.  For many years before our .com age we had our Bill Brasky Tribute page.  Once we finally made it to a .com, we realized just how popular the tribute was.  For months, Bill Brasky dominated as our leading search string, bringing in 100s of hits a month.  With the obvious success of this Tribute, more would have to follow.  The Pathetic Tribute to Doug Funnie was added, which has brought in almost equal success.  I believe we plan to have more Tributes, but nothing is set in stone yet.  I'm thinking Conan O'Brien...

    Articles are undeniably the foundation of PsychoNoble thus far.  Our archive of articles has tripled since we've gone .com.  We now have over 60 articles as of this writing, with topics on everything from religion, to sports, to comics, to coin wallets.  Yes, coin wallets.  Expect the Articles section to continue being one of the cornerstones of PsychoNoble.

    Recently we have added The PsychoNoble Store.  Although it is quite small currently, we have plans for much more in the future along the lines of T-Shirts, Stickers, and other possible merchandise.  Be Warned, it's not on the top of our to-do list.  That would be The Story of Trek.

    Poor Story of Trek.  It's just one of those things that keeps getting put off do to one issue or another.  It's quite hard to put together such a huge collaboration of memories and stories when everyone is going to college full-time (and I live 1500 miles away).  Oddly enough, come December of this year, the idea of Story of Trek will be a year old, yet not nearly completed...  No matter what though, this will be finished one day.  It may not be soon, but it is a story that must be told.

    Not as forgotten about as Story of Trek but still somewhat neglected is our Reviews page.  There have only been a handful of new additions over the year, but they are not to be frowned upon.  I think the Reviews section has great potential for us to show what the good and the bad is of the old and the new from all genres.  I don't know if that sentence made sense to you, but my belief stands.  Reviews... there will be more.

    Then there was August.  Don't remember August?  That'd because our website was down for the whole month.  Apparently our web-hosting service had some massive system crash which caused a website rewind of sorts.  This lead to some downtime for us and some of our ownerships being changed, making us unable to update for a period of time.  All is better now, and we got a $5 credit.  Split 4 ways, that's $1.25 each!  It's burning a hole already!

    Well, how would you like some fun facts?

    -We now have over 24,000 visits.  I'd give the exact figure, but the stats thing only keeps a record for the past 12 months, thus erasing our first month of November.

    -For the first 5 months, our visits nearly doubled every month.  They now currently fluctuate around that level.  There goes our exponential growth...

    -I was once threatened with a $10,000,000 lawsuit for an article I wrote on this site.

    -So far this month, 32 people have found our site by searching McDonald's Characters, and 2 have found our site by searching George Lucas Neck.

    Now, I'd like to give some thanks to everyone contributing to the site.  Alex and Jordan, although you guys hardly ever update anymore, I'm glad to have your guys name on the Who We Are page.  Blake, thanks for those articles you offered up, and hopefully you'll get some more in down the road.  Cole, did you even write an article for the site during our .com status?  Matt, your articles are always so far out there I don't know if they are stupid funny or genius funny.  Either way, keep them coming.  Thanks to everyone who checks out this site on a regular basis, whoever you are.  Thanks to the people who post on the message boards, you guys rock.  And of course a thank you to Brady, who is my co-updater and co-main contributor to the site.  Here's to another year man!

    So there you have it.  Chalk up The State of the Website Address: Year One as another article for the archives.  I'm not quite sure what the next year in our history will bring, but I plan on making this an annual thing.  So stay tuned for The State of the Website Address: Year Two, coming in 364 days!

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