December 17, 2023

Twenty five big ones. This website was switched on 12/18/98. A quarter of a century later, we are still here. How? Why? Not an easy thing to answer.

Listen above as Templeton, Patrick, Jason, and I discuss the early days of wiskate.com – the website you are currently looking at. Thanks to the Mostly Skateboarding Podcast for showing some love!

A primordial creature crawls from the digital sea. An actual image of wiskate.com being turned on for the first time.

If you’re interested in the history of the website, there’s a somewhat comprehensive document showcasing the various design failures, highs, lows, firsts, and lasts. You may board this internet time machine by clicking the link here.

I’d like to thank all of the site contributors over the years. From the earliest – when the site first acquired an embryonic CMS system – which for the first time allowed multiple people to post on the site. Steve Green, Mark Heiderich, Pat Gaynor, Tim Olson, Russ Clark, Nate Heilberger, Bill Kaschner, and James Rewolinski. To later very valuable contributors like Bradford Bishop, Pat Forster, Eric Risser, Chase Hopper, John Mcguire, Vince Stranc, Nick Mistele, Jacob Tyler Mumford, Harald Reynolds, and Gabe Chan. There’s dozens more that made one or a few posts, I could never name them all!

Thanks for coming to all of the video premiers. Thanks for talking shit on the message board. Thanks for skating. Thanks for it all!