April 1st is a day that many people really love or really hate with a passion. Today is April Fools Day and every single publication (bar Kotaku Australia) writes a joke piece, and every company does something. However, it is also a special day for TechGeek as well – because it’s our birthday!
And no, it’s not a joke. It is really the site’s birthday.
Stewart Wilson and I started this site all the way back on April 1, 2007 and originally it was linking back to other people’s stories with a one paragraph rewrite of said link. We were located on a server with very small space that one of Stewart’s friends owned, using a semi-decent WordPress theme from the Theme Directory, and we didn’t even have the domain name “techgeek.com.au”.
Fast-forward to today and you can see how much we’ve changed. We’re still doing rewrites of news stories from other people, but we’re doing much more in terms of original content – such as longform features, analysis and opinion pieces, reviews and how-to articles. We are also using a theme that lets us break away from the traditional blog format. And, we’re also on a server that can actually handle traffic spikes when one of our stories is posted on Reddit.
I’d like to personally thank everyone that was involved with TechGeek – past and present – for doing your bit to make this site where it is today. Because, without you guys, it would be just me writing – and that wouldn’t be fun at all. Whether it was just appearing on the podcast, taking photos or even just contributing one article, thank you.
I also have to thank the IT Journalism community, because we wouldn’t be where we are today without them. Not just because of the advice they offer (or the articles), but because of one article on the website ITJourno. TechGeek was featured on a recurring segment on their site BlogWatch – the very first, in fact.
It was when that article was published was when I realised, “Holy shit, people are reading what we write on our site”. I still get surprised by the fact people read our site to this very day – something that Ausdroid’s Jason Murray keeps reminding me that I should not be.
And thank you, readers, for continuing to read the stuff we publish. You guys are totally awesome, and thanks for all the feedback you’ve given us all these years – especially the Nintendo fanboys (who, I suspect, still hate me for advocating the death of the Wii U).
Hopefully we can make it to ten years.