Well, I really did have the intention of writing one column per month for our ten month anniversary, but it turns out that my schedule gets more and more crazy as I get older! Anyway, we’ve looked at a lot of different things with respect to the history of TBL in the previous TBL @ 10 columns. This time around I want to look at some of the innovations that made TBL special both “then” and “now.”
As with most stories, this one best begins at the beginning. When I decided to make TBL a wrestling site from my bitching site, I also decided that I wanted to have stuff on the site that no one else really had. I thought in very basic terms here, folks. Most of the wrestling sites out there that weren’t just tribute pages had the same set up. You go to the site, the webmaster gives you the days “news and rumors,” someone writes a column for you to peruse at your leisure, and there was a link for you to e-mail the webmaster. Plain and simple enough.
I thought, “Well, why not give the visitors a reason to come back to the same site that wasn’t just news and rumor-related?” With that in mind, I created a Top Ten Lists area where I would post my Top Ten Lists on a range of wrestling topics from Top Ten Managers, Valets, Big Men, Tag Teams, Announcers, etc. Taking a page from the talk radio world, every now and again I’d throw in a real messed up #1 pick on the list to generate some interest. How did this get the readers involved? Simple enough – they started sending in their own lists and I posted them for everyone to see! It’s a crazy thing about people…you put their name on a website and they want to show everyone on God’s Creation that their name is online.
This was fun so I figured that there had to be more ways to get people involved (and remember, this is before the days of site-based forums). So I began speculating with a What If? section. I would ask simple questions like “What if Shawn Michaels went to WCW with the rest of the Clique?” Questions that people would think in their minds, but really only discuss with their friends because there was no place online to have those discussions (besides newsgroups and the Prodigy bulletin board system, both of which were losing popularity due to increased spam). So I started writing down and publishing some of these thoughts, and it came out pretty good. Again, people would submit their own questions (sometimes with answers, sometimes without). And just like with the Top Ten Lists – you put someone’s name or handle on your website, and they keep coming back to see it.
Hey, if TBL was going to be a wrestling-only website, I wanted to at least draw in some hits from it!
Through the years we took on some similar innovations as the rest of the sites out there like a newsboard, forums, and a newsletter. Recently, though, both our current Webmaster and our previous Webmaster have contributed some great additions to the website.
First, Martin Hawrysko created and implemented a section called “Pardon the Ring” – a “Pardon the Interruption” style feature that took a similar style to the ESPN show. A selection of topics would be covered by a panel of participants and each would only have a certain amount of time to get their thoughts out before the next topic came up. It was actually a really fun read – it was set-up in a Flash movie that was placed on the website. Good stuff.
Second, Eddie T. put together these really fun web shows called TBL Soundoff. These shows, which were different from PTR by being audio in format and downloadable, featured Eddie and Trevor Hunnicutt engaged in conversations about WWE storylines as well as MMA news. The show has slowed down a bit with both Eddie and Trevor’s schedules picking up a bit, but if there is ever another edition of it posted to the site – be sure to check it out!
And believe it or not, the innovations continue, folks. There is at least one semi-major project that I’ve been working on and that I’ve told Eddie about. If we can pull it off logistically (i.e. if we can find the time for proper updates), then we will have created yet another TBL Original for non-corporate wrestling sites. More on that as it comes…
Keep tuned in to TBL for the latest news and rumors and be sure to look for our TBL @ 10 section during the month of April as we celebrate 10 years on the internet!
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