The Greatest Year of URC
It shouldn't be hard to figure out from the title that this issue is about the year 2003. From January 1 to December 31, the forums alone grew from 536 members to over 7,400 in the wake of a November 2002 database reset. The year of 2003 saw us blast through the 1 million monthly page view & 10 million "hit" marks. It saw the number of sub-forums grow from a few dozen to nearly 200 as the total post count surpassed 130,000. It saw the launch of RC10T4.com, MonsterGT.com and the hugely successful MiniOffroaders.com. It saw me personally go through some pretty tough times, only to have the whole community come together to help me back up. If you think this issue of my column is about the year 2003, however, you're completely mistaken.
Let's take a brief jog down memory lane. It was the first of March, 2001 when my first R/C site, UltimateTraxxas.com (check out the first design!), was unveiled to the public. It didn't take long before I started getting a steady stream of emails about my projects. Many of the incoming inquiries became repetitive, so I added an ezBoard-powered message board with four topic areas to capture frequently asked questions about the Ultimate Rustler, Stampede and Spyder E-Maxx and collect site feedback. A year later, J-SPEC was gaining popularity on the local scene, there were over 5,000 posts on the message board (over 300 by our most prolific member at the time!), and I had finally secured the domain name "ultimaterc.com" from its previous owner. Things were begnning to get interesting. Still another year later, the current vBulletin-powered Ultimate R/C Forums were alive & kickin', Phase III of the Ultimate Rustler project was well underway, and the 1,000th user had just joined the forums.
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As of this writing, the fourth year of the online portion of my R/C adventure is about to begin, and all indications point to another bright year, indeed. I've got new alliances forming, new partnerships solidified, new advertisers signed up, and a total redesign of all of my own URC Network sites underway. A small and slowly-growing number of talented and very enthusiastic individuals are taking responsibility for some of the sites and forum areas. The Network as a whole has become financially independent and I'm starting to recycle funds back into the community through race sponsorships, giveaways and other exciting means.
After a number of long sessions of appraisal and reflection, I've come to understand just how much bigger than me URC has become. Not only do I have a very large number of users, but many of them spend a disproportionate amount of their free or online time hanging out in the forums. After 10 years of fantasizing & making feeble attempts, I've finally gotten an online oasis with sticking power.
So, what's next? As much as I'd like to take a bit of a break & rest on the laurels of what's already been created, I'm not about to give any of this great momentum a chance to wane. I've got a major redesign underway for all of my sites, for starters. The URC Galleries are going to be beefed up and broadened significantly and an entirely new, much enhanced and highly customized version of the forum software is in the works. On the project front, I've gone back to work on some old, unfinished items and begun planning and collecting parts for some unique new creations. At least one of this year's new projects is going to have the same sort of genre-defying impact as Phase IV of the Ultimate E-Maxx: Spyder. Plus, of course, I have some tricks up my sleeve that you'll just have to wait to see.
The greatest year of URC is obviously yet to come. Will this year be the one? Absolutely. So will next year, and the year after that. The ship has departed, and there's no stoppin' her now.
-Bamidele "The JANG" Shangobunmi
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