Happy Birthday ZooChat

[Simon Hampel]

I was cleaning up the announcements forum and discovered the post I made announcing the relaunch and rebuild of the site when we changed the name to ZooChat.

That was 20th October, 2008 ... almost exactly 8 years before I relaunched the website again with new software this last Friday. That previous relaunch was itself almost exactly 5 years after first launching the site. Honestly I didn't plan it that way!

19 Oct 2003 first thread welcoming people to ZooChat: Welcome !

20 Oct 2008 announcement about the relaunch: Welcome to ZooChat!

21 Oct 2016 announcement about the relaunch: Welcome to the new ZooChat

Things have changed a lot in that time!

 

[TeaLovingDave]

If you had remained on schedule you would have managed it 8 years to the day, too!

 

[Simon Hampel]

Thanks to the Wayback Machine on Internet Archive: Wayback Machine ... I can even show you what the site looked like back then!

7 December 2003

• 17 members
• 23 threads
• 37 posts
• domain: zoobeat.org

1 February 2004

• 27 members
• 38 threads
• 99 posts
• domain: zoobeat.org

15 December 2005

• 60 members
• 155 threads
• 552 posts
• domain: zoobeat.org
• last version of zoobeat.org in the archives

9th July 2006

• 78 members
• 264 threads
• 2,520 posts
• domain: zoobeat.com

26th October 2006

• 90 members
• 1,263 threads
• 3,998 posts
• 53 photos
• domain: zoobeat.com

19th April 2007

• 174 members
• 4,941 threads
• 11,434 posts
• 359 photos
• 89 comments
• domain: zoobeat.com

6th July 2008

• 751 members
• 7,523 threads
• 46,901 posts
• 8,048 photos
• 5,640 comments
• domain: zoobeat.com
• last version of zoobeat.com in the archives

19th December 2008

• 1,223 members
• 24,677 threads
  
• 81,281 posts
• 24,677 photos
• 514 zoos
• domain: zoochat.com

... and it's largely stayed the same over the past 6 years ... here is the version they captured most recently:

24th August 2016

• 13,168 members
• 319,582 threads
• 561,582 posts
• 273,174 photos
• 1,848 zoos
• domain: zoochat.com

 

[snowleopard]

I remember those old days of "ZooBeat" and the photo of the African Lion at Monarto Zoo. Those were the days! The current ZooChat site has a lot of great new benefits but I'm sorely missing the "new comments" section as for myself and many others it was the #1 reason to log in every day. Now if someone comments on a photo that dialogue gets lost in the mix.

 

[nicholas]

Wow, the days of zoobeat. I don't even remember how I found the site, but I do remember being hooked from the beginning.

I miss (and look forward to) the "new comments" section too.

 

[zooboy28]

I never saw the ZooBeat site, but it is rather interesting (and a bit of a shame) that the volunteering forum never took off. One would think that volunteers would make up a significant portion of ZooChat members, but they don't seem to.