Posted by Joe Cimoch on Friday, January 19, 2007 at 18:15:52 :
In Reply to: Re: Happy Birthday Forum - 10 years old today posted by APB (in the tropical rainforest) on Friday, January 19, 2007 at 15:39:15 :
I started the web site before the forum. My college friend and Best Man, John "Stump" Morocco gave me the idea after he had built corvette.net. The Power Wagon website generated emails from a bunch of people. Peter Sprouse and I exchanged emails about hobbies etc., and Peter mentioned that he subscribed to a listserv for Spelunkers, and it was a great way to communicate with people who have similar interests.
I looked into listserves, and started seeing forums, and bulletin board software, and decided to try that approach.
Initially the forum was hosted at a different provider, then after a few posts, I installed the same software on my own web server, and copied over all the original posts. Somewhere along the line I registered the dodgepowerwagon.com domain name.
I did get press in the PWA, truck magazines, military rags etc. Then the site became popular on search engines, and brought more folks. I remember having a phone conversation one Sunday morning with Gordon Maney about the Internet, forum, magazines, and such. At that time we were both new to the web. I remember Gordon asking if I thought the Internet would have any effect on print media. And I remember saying although the Internet is convenient, and quick, it has its place. I don't think it will totally replace paper for me, but I'm not so sure that my kids would make the same claim. I read a lot. And I still enjoy sitting down with a book, paper, or the PWA.
I guess the rest is history. Thank you all for the nice comments.
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