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CharlotteChurch.iwarp.com
Home Page circa early January 2000 |
Many
of you probably never have heard of CharlotteChurch.iwarp.com
but believe it or not, it was this small, rather hastily made
site that launched the one you see before you today. One year
ago 21, December 1999 I posted the following...my first update
to the web and honestly its been quite a trip since:
-December
21, 1999-
I'd like to take this time to introduce you to my Charlotte
Church Web Site. Today is my first of what I hope will be many
more posts as I step with you into the future. I started this
website because to put it simply Charlotte has become a part
of many people's lives. First, a little about me, I'm a 17
year old from Florida, USA and I have loved Charlotte's
music since I first listen. This site was created to serve the
ever growing Charlotte Church fan community with fresh and
interesting content. That is my goal and I will pursue it to
no end. If you would like to learn more about me and this page
click on about. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't
credit those who came before me and so with that in mind I
would like to recognise the great people at both www.charlottechurch.com
and www.geocities.com/charlottechurch
for it is their work that has paved the way for mine. I would
also like to thank all of you for coming to this inaugural day
and I hope that you will come back in the future as I will be
continually updating the site for your enjoyment. Finally,
thanks Charlotte for being who you are. Enjoy the ride
everybody. - Mark (Webmaster, Owner -
Charlottechurch.iwarp.com)
From
there on out I tried my very best to keep the site fresh and
interesting and to my surprise people actually came! All 500
of them , over a period of 2 weeks:) Yes, it was a very modest
start but I must admit it was great fun to finally get away
from doing work for other sites which was what I did for the
two years previous.
The
odds were clearly against me, I had not a clue about classical
music nor much of "the business" of music
altogether. My background was mostly in British and American
Rock but it was my openness to listen to anything that led me
to find Charlotte's music. I had first heard Charlotte on a TV
interview during my summer holiday up in Maine..I only caught
the end and frankly I didn't even remember her name but the
main thing that came to my mind was "jeeze that girl can
sing." Shortly after I returned home from my trip I saw
an advertisement for Voice of an Angel and suddenly the memory
of the interview came back. I now had a name to put to the
voice and the face so I went out an purchased the album as
soon as I could. I thought I was out of my mind because me
buying classical music just didn't make sense. Nevertheless, I
was more than surprised with VOA and like many other fans
wanted to learn more about Charlotte so I just typed in
CharlotteChurch.com and came to the original album site I
liked it but I wanted to also find out what other fans thought
so then my search led me to this site:
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Geocities.com/CharlotteChurch |
This
site was done by Adam, (who is now our Co-Founder:), I was
impressed by his ability to cover all the bases in regard to
Charlotte and I found his archives more than helpful. At
this point it was mid November and low and behold Charlotte's
second album had finally graced store shelves . Like VOA, I thoroughly
enjoyed it and the accompanying site from Sony. I also
continued to watch Adam's site for the latest appearance
information.
Then
one day in December 1999 , I got the crazy idea of making my
own site...at the time I was torn between making a site for
Jaguar car photos or something for Charlotte. As I said before
I worked the past 2 years helping others improve their sites,
most recently I had done some work for British Supermodel
Sarah Thomas (Hi Sarah! :), it was a very interesting little
gig but Sarah called it quits and therefore I was free to work
on my own site for the foreseeable future. It was my
experience working with Sarah's small but enthusiastic fan
base that gave me the knowledge I needed to work with fans all
over the world.
So
on 18 December 1999 I reserved the web space for
CharlotteChurch.iwarp.com and began work. I wanted a design
completely different from all the other sites so I spent most
of the early days working on graphics alone. When it came to
content I admittedly had none at all in the beginning save for
a few new pictures that were on the web. It was at this time I
contacted Adam and asked to borrow some content to get
started. Adam kindly agreed but I promised I would get some of
my own as soon as I got a start. On 21 December 1999 I
launched the page by telling all the fans I had come across
about it..the first day I think we got 20 visitors...it was a
very humble launch but I was committed to seeing it through.
It
didn't take long before I started meeting more and more fans
through the site and Adam's E-Mail List, many were kind enough
to offer help with the site while others just wanted to
encourage me to keep going. After about a week of work and a
Christmas Holiday I had finally managed to get some new
content of my own up. Thanks to people such as Steve I was
able to come up with some advancements for the site that
ultimately went on to be big hits.
New
Year's Eve 2000 was quite a night as I watched the year end
all over the world, one of the big surprises of the night was
watching Charlotte
perform in Millennium Stadium Cardiff.
January
was a month of stunning growth for the site as visits really
started to occur as word of the site got around. Our Photo
Gallery and Media Gallery became hot spots for Charlotte
info and our downloads area was always active with good old
Reto releasing Midi's nearly every day. Keep in mind that at
that time taking captures of video meant actually using a
camera to shoot pictures of the screen! Video captures were
crude little MPEG's that were taken using my Sony Mavica.
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Media
Gallery |
Photo
Gallery |
It
was also during January that I met Joe and decided to
ultimately give up the site to create a "new
project" called CharlotteChurchFans. I am forever
thankful to Joe for seeing the site and believing in me.
On 18 February 2000 CharlotteChurch.iwarp.com closed for good
and just 3 days later on the 21st (Charlotte's Birthday)
CharlotteChurch.net was launched!
As
you can see it was really a quick but exciting ride to the
site you are looking at now..we're going to have a much bigger
history when this site turns the ripe old age of one but this
was just a little look back at where this all came from.
Finally,
I need to thank the four guys that made
CharlotteChurch.iwarp.com a success, without their help none
of what you see before you would have ever existed:
Adam,
who is now our Co-Founder and was my early mentor and
inspiration for that original site never doubted my intentions
and gave me a heck of a lot of trust. Although he ultimately
gave up his site to join us I will never forget how much I
enjoyed looking through his archives for the first time.
Steve,
who is now our Forums Moderator and a member of Team USA gave
me a ton of effort in those first few weeks of the site.
Although we didn't know each other very much Steve and I
became friends really quickly and I always looked forward to
his next e-mail. The Media
Feature of the Week and the whole concept of having
features was entirely his idea to make the site more
interesting and enjoyable. Steve also helped on many occasions
to capture pictures of Charlotte on TV in those early days. In
addition to this the emotional support Steve provided gave me
the confidence to try to new things and succeed at them.
Reto,
who has since left the site was our early "composer"
is truly someone I can call my friend. Reto gave me exclusive
access to his Midi creations early on and helped make
CharlotteChurch.iwarp.com a desitnation. In addition to this
he also gave me some of our first TV captures and was always
there to lend a hand.
Last
but not least Joe, who joined me in the early days of January
to take the site from just a little dedication page to a
worldwide resource for fans. Joe trusted me a great deal and
basically gave me the freedom to do what I did best. More than
anyone else Joe is the reason for the site you now see in
front of you.
The
greatest part about this story is that we are just getting
started, I have no idea what next year brings but I hope that
when we look back on all this again next year you'll be there
to join me. That's
my little story! I hope you enjoyed it and feel free to
e-mail me your questions and comments. You can also visit my
personal page here.
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