The History of Audioholics.com

A trip down memory lane seemed appropriate once we decided that Audioholics needed its final overhaul. I say FINAL because I am determined to never go through this process again... This isn't the first time Audioholics has undergone a transformation, but until this one they have always been superficial - dealing with the look or aesthetics of the website.

Sure, back in 2003 we added the vBulletin application that now drives our home theater forums. That was an application install, but it took us to a new place and allowed us to form a proper community for our readers. But let's go back in time and check out the history of the Audioholics website, where it came from and where it's going:

Captain, Raise Shields!

Let's take a sneak peek into what a couple of weight trainers and engineers will do with a passion for audio (and apparently Star Trek). Actually it's not too shabby for circa 1998:

Audioholics circa 1998-1999

Black and blue- which is how it must have made Gene and Hugo (his friend and webmaster) feel to manually alter the site for each new file and article. Actually, at this time Gene was completely unable to edit the site due to the complexity of the code and lack of any content management system.  Yet he still pressed on to develop a no nonsense A/V website that held true to the mantra of "pursuing the truth in audio" despite the obstacles in his path.

The forums at that time were driven by an archaic system that is still in use today by websites that specialize in ham radios and esoteric speaker cables:

Audioholics Forums circa 1998-1999

Community? What's that? Well, to be fair it's pretty awesome that the concept of a forum was alive and kicking within the minds of Audioholics back then. This design and concept was in place when I came along. With my background in audio/video and multimedia and having owned my own Internet and CD-ROM development company since 1996, it was a great fit to get me into the swing of things and tweak the site to be just a little more friendly.

Circa 2002. Look, news postings!

The first thing we did was add in a basic content management system. At the time we selected something very easy to use and which didn't carry a high cost (it was free) or have a steep learning curve. This system allowed myself, Gene and others to post content on the home page and keep the site fresh. The system didn't yet tie into the rest of the site and we of course only made minor updates to the website design, keeping it black so as to not shock viewers with a completely new interface. At the time Audioholics was getting about 50,000 unique visitors per month if I remember correctly, making it a successful hobbyist site.

As more and more content filled the site, and Gene recruited more writers, including myself, we quickly decided to step things up and bring the site into the 21st Century. Audioholics went "white".

Circa 2003. Holy canolies, somebody must have hit the site with Oxy-Clean!

The site became eye-friendly at last. Gone was the black background (just try to find a review or news site with a black background these days) in favor of a more readable white. The only remaining color scheme from the original was the blue. We even shifted the Yellow to Orange in order to allow it to work with the bleached interface. This is also when we added vBulletin and replaced the old forums. It was a tough transition, but it worked and we were on the road to being able to somewhat support our rapid growth. We still needed one more step, however, and it didn't come until a year later when we expanded the Content Management System (CMS) we were using to include the entire site except for our product reviews - which, frankly, were too big for the system to paginate properly. Once this happened, we were in a good position and Gene could now post articles to other areas of the website - which was a "good thing".

Where Where We Last?

So where were we before this final and death-defying change? Here:

Circa 2006. Audioholics as 1 million+ unique readers/month knew it

Now that's a nice looking website. The trouble is, despite its immense popularity (over 1 million unique readers per month) it was difficult to navigate, had only rudimentary search functions and limited advertising potential (which is important if you want to continue to grow and do bigger things.)  It was also based on the layout of the original website - mostly due to necessity and sanity. What we needed was a complete rewrite, new CMS, and a whole host of new features for our readers. It was time for a change.

Where Are You Now?

Enter Audioholics 2.0. This website does an amazing amount of things, some of which our readers will never appreciate due to the fact that a lot of the functionality exists on the back-end. Audioholics is now built on a Content Management System called Plone. We are blessed to have some exceptionally talented Plone developers working with us right now who take this type of work to a new level.

OK, back to the site. It's incredible. Plone allows all of our writers to enter their articles and reviews on the site by themselves, and allows the Editor-in-Chief - namely me - to do my job online and peer them before they get published live to the website. On a functional note, our readers will soon have access to a host of new features and assets through a subscription model that will only enhance the website experience with entertaining training and educational videos and the ability to do more with our content.

Cool Facts About the New Website

• Try using the Search function - it's fast and thorough.
  
• Membership will be added soon which will allow for, among other things, elimination of the side banner ads and printing of reviews and technical articles.
• Click on the Submit News link at the top of the page to send us news items and get credit if we post about what you sent.
• We are now able to update our Recommended System Guides more frequently and easily.
• We'll be introducing more and more features throughout the year like direct forum integration/feedback within articles and consumer reviews.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. This year will see an Audioholics-sponsored home theater podcast, and more new stuff than you would have thought possible from a band of committed (or should we perhaps BE committed?) audio- and videoholics.

None of this would be possible without our loyal readers and forum members. We appreciate you being here with us and we hope to make this an even better website for years to come. Without you this would be Audioholics two-point-flop - and we know it. Thanks so much for your support and enjoy the music and movies!