It all started back in 1999, sitting at work, bored out of my mind yet feeling slightly ambitious. I decided that skiing was taking a definite turn for the better, and the sport needed a core website to promote it. The original site was as basic as they come. No interactivity. No stellar content. Nothing but a couple of profiles of some sick riders, and three trick tips.
A year later, on a saturday afternoon in September of 2000, again while sitting at work with nothing to do, a decision was made that would change Newschoolers.com forever. The site needed something more. It needed more content. More updates. It needed to be completely interactive. So on that sunny afternoon, from 20 stories above downtown Ottawa, with the visual buzz of tourists and mall-walkers below, the new Newschoolers.com was born.
The first interactive Newschoolers.com, which was released on October 1st of 2000, was a hit from the day it started. Members loved the interactivity, and guests loved the content. After only three months online, the site had attracted more than 500 members, a sure sign of good things to come.
As the site continued to grow to new levels, so did the glitches in the code. Every old-time member can remember the days of the re-code, when the site was completely rebuilt from the ground up. The re-code ensured that Newschoolers.com would not fold under the pressure of the thousands of hits it received every day, and after moving to another new server, the site was finally solid and ready for action.
Three years after the initial concept was conceived, Newschoolers.com has become the place to find information, talk to other skiers, watch videos, and look at pictures. The possibilities are endless as thousands of new forum posts appear each week, and new members join daily. As the sport of skiing continues to grows, so does Newschoolers.com. With magazines, ski movies, and ski hills noticing the mass potential of the site, only time will tell what will happen next.
Matt Harvey
July 29th, 2002
