Post
by XPress » March 7th, 2009, 12:51 pm
Ok, I have to ask...
When I was told about this place, I was told about two or three other sites as well, one of which was Litkicks.
The first place I visited on that list, was Litkicks (which I found very slow, & sterile) and then I visited here, and in my openning post, I mentioned Litkicks, and was greeted with a "Litkicks sucks" comment.
Then I found this thread, and last night I searched, and found a few more threads, and... long story short, there's a story here, and I'm a curious cat, who'd love to hear it.
From what I can tell, reading what's been written so far, Litkicks was founded in about 1871, several decades before the invention of the internet, and sat there in cyber space, as a fairly over looked website until about the millenium.
At some stage, around about the turning of the millenium, maybe a year or two before, or a year or two after (traffic sites, and the archives, seem to indicate around 2001), Litkicks exploded, for some reason, and became a popular web community, with scores of members, who were all happy campers.
Then, around 2003, traffic starts to tail off a little, and in 2004 the community is closed down, before the site re-emerges as a rather dull blog, with about 10% of the traffic, and interest, that the site had had at it's peak.
Despite the obvious failure of the new format, it remains that way for the next 5 years, until now.
That's just me processing data, it's statistics, and numbers, but I'd love to know the story behind it all, as it does seem to be a subject that promotes an emotional response, and something that people seem to care about.
Why did it explode into life?
Why was it considered so good?
Why did it die?
Why was the community closed down?
Why was it turned into a dull blog?
Why, despite the failure of the new format, has it remained that way?
Why do people care so much?
It's rare to see someone, who has owned a website, for a billion years, deliberately kill it's traffic stream, spirit, and community, especially when it had clearly become popular.
There's clearly a story, or two, here, and, if it's not a sin to ask, I'd love to hear it.