And this is how it all began:
http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=2
Not many of you might realize this, but CocoonTech.com turns 2 today! So much has happened in these 2 years. I started the site on a server located in my house (Celeron 500Mhz, 128 megs of memory), but it became obvious in a very little time that an expansion of this system was needed.
Apparently no other site offered services which were; vendor & manufacture neutral, offered chat services, is actively maintained, and offered many articles including how-to's and reviews. In a matter of weeks it became obvious that people have wanted something like this for a while, and CocoonTech.com rapidly became one of the most popular home automation sites on the net, thus forcing me to move the site to a commercial hosting company.
The site has gone through a lot, including several major crashes, which were serious enough to make me wonder if it was worth continuing the site. Within minutes of people hearing of this news, hundreds of Cocooners showed their support by requesting that I rebuild the site while they themselves tried to recover the lost content.. While a lot of data was lost, it showed how large and close knit this community has become, which clearly separates us from a typical information/portal web site.
Another great example of our community spirit occurred during last year's car accident, which involved BraveSirRobbin’s wife and son. This was a really sad moment, but once again, CocoonTech.com members stepped up to the plate, and did everything they could to comfort his family. I am extremely happy to report that everyone recovered near 100%, even though it has been a very long year for them. The most incredible part is that BSR continued to help people online, in the forums and through his How-To's.
While we might have a small number of official staff members, the site would not be possible without many Cocooners, who have put so much time into the site. WayneW helps out with the news articles, jlehnert has contributed a lot of his time to the Glossary section, and the many other dedicated Cocooners who are always there when help is needed. CocoonTech's main strength is the quality of it's members!
One other major positive change since our first anniversary is the explosive growth of our community. Many manufactures & vendors decided to join the community and some even decided to participate in the forums (while others are only observing). I am sure I don't have to explain what the benefits are of having manufactures and vendors listen to their customers
So what's in store for the next year? CocoonTech.com 2.0! You might have heard about it a lot, but things are actually moving along now! I am actually hoping to have a public beta up and running within a month. Once I am more certain about the launch date, I will start revealing some of the new features, you won't be disappointed!
Anyways, I am done 'ranting' for now, I just would like to thank everyone for all they have done for the site, and I look forward to the next year, which promises to be very exciting!
Check out some of the following stats that occured over our first two years:
There have been 36 How-To/Guide articles written that have been viewed over 60,000 times.
There is a live chat associated with the site that "meets" every week on Friday nights. This chat has had guest speakers which included representatives from HomeSeer, mControl, Control Think, Elk, Applied Digital, Cinemar, and many others. This chat has served over 186507 lines of text from January 2001 till present (which shows how active it has become).
There have been five contests which have yielded in thousands of dollars of prizes.
This site boasts a membership of over 1097 registered members who have made over 24,000 posts.
Many vendors use CocoonTech as a "sounding board" to see how their products are fairing out "in the user world".
http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=2
Not many of you might realize this, but CocoonTech.com turns 2 today! So much has happened in these 2 years. I started the site on a server located in my house (Celeron 500Mhz, 128 megs of memory), but it became obvious in a very little time that an expansion of this system was needed.
Apparently no other site offered services which were; vendor & manufacture neutral, offered chat services, is actively maintained, and offered many articles including how-to's and reviews. In a matter of weeks it became obvious that people have wanted something like this for a while, and CocoonTech.com rapidly became one of the most popular home automation sites on the net, thus forcing me to move the site to a commercial hosting company.
The site has gone through a lot, including several major crashes, which were serious enough to make me wonder if it was worth continuing the site. Within minutes of people hearing of this news, hundreds of Cocooners showed their support by requesting that I rebuild the site while they themselves tried to recover the lost content.. While a lot of data was lost, it showed how large and close knit this community has become, which clearly separates us from a typical information/portal web site.
Another great example of our community spirit occurred during last year's car accident, which involved BraveSirRobbin’s wife and son. This was a really sad moment, but once again, CocoonTech.com members stepped up to the plate, and did everything they could to comfort his family. I am extremely happy to report that everyone recovered near 100%, even though it has been a very long year for them. The most incredible part is that BSR continued to help people online, in the forums and through his How-To's.
While we might have a small number of official staff members, the site would not be possible without many Cocooners, who have put so much time into the site. WayneW helps out with the news articles, jlehnert has contributed a lot of his time to the Glossary section, and the many other dedicated Cocooners who are always there when help is needed. CocoonTech's main strength is the quality of it's members!
One other major positive change since our first anniversary is the explosive growth of our community. Many manufactures & vendors decided to join the community and some even decided to participate in the forums (while others are only observing). I am sure I don't have to explain what the benefits are of having manufactures and vendors listen to their customers
So what's in store for the next year? CocoonTech.com 2.0! You might have heard about it a lot, but things are actually moving along now! I am actually hoping to have a public beta up and running within a month. Once I am more certain about the launch date, I will start revealing some of the new features, you won't be disappointed!
Anyways, I am done 'ranting' for now, I just would like to thank everyone for all they have done for the site, and I look forward to the next year, which promises to be very exciting!
Check out some of the following stats that occured over our first two years:
There have been 36 How-To/Guide articles written that have been viewed over 60,000 times.
There is a live chat associated with the site that "meets" every week on Friday nights. This chat has had guest speakers which included representatives from HomeSeer, mControl, Control Think, Elk, Applied Digital, Cinemar, and many others. This chat has served over 186507 lines of text from January 2001 till present (which shows how active it has become).
There have been five contests which have yielded in thousands of dollars of prizes.
This site boasts a membership of over 1097 registered members who have made over 24,000 posts.
Many vendors use CocoonTech as a "sounding board" to see how their products are fairing out "in the user world".
