boards.ie

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boards.ie
URL http://www.boards.ie
Commercial? No
Type of site Classified discussion boards
Available language(s) English, Irish; some subforums for other languages
Owner Tom Murphy, John Breslin, Dan King, Jerry Connolly, Gerry Shanahan
Created by John Breslin
Launched 1998 (rebranded 2000)

boards.ie (previously Cloud Boards) is an Internet forum based in Ireland. Established by John "Cloud" Breslin in 1998 to discuss the id software game Quake [1], the site was re-launched in 2000 as simply boards.ie. It is considered one of the largest indigenous Irish websites online. [2] As of 2008 the site has over 900,000 visitors a month[3], 115,000 registered accounts, 600,000 threads and more than 7 million posts. A wide variety of topics are discussed, mostly from (but not limited to) an Irish perspective.

Contents

[edit] History

In 1998 Dr. John Breslin created a single forum to enable discussion amongst Irish users of the id Software game Quake, while employed as a researcher at the National University of Ireland, Galway. This forum was a response/expansion to the IGN quake.ie forum, and utilized "Matt's WWW Board" software. The site gained in popularity until the size of its threads exceeded the capacity of the software. Breslin came into contact with Tom Murphy, who had been administrating a Quake-related forum called Quakapalooza. Cloud Board then began utilizing Murphy's ASP software, Ultimate Bulletin Board Software. [4] Breslin proposed a more general (not just Quake-related) forum, dedicated to general Irish issues, in 1999, and considered the name boards.ie to be a more useful and desired domain.

In 2000, Cloud Board was then rebranded for a more general audience. Limitations in what organizations could register prevented private individuals from registering vanity or custom domains. Breslin had previously been unsuccessful in registering the domain cloud.ie with the Irish domain registry. Murphy entered a bet with Breslin that he could successfully register a domain for a rebranded web forum. Murphy renamed his company Spin Solutions to Boards for a day, registered the paperwork with the Irish domain register for Boards.ie, and was granted the domain. [5]

In 2003, boards.ie achieved one million posts to its forums. [6]

In 2007, the boards.ie Ltd. company acquired the rights to the boards.ie and other domains from Breslin. [7]

In 2008, boards.ie hired its first full-time developer. [8]

[edit] Structure

The site is owned by five individuals, known as the administrators, or "admins", who delegate administrative and editorial control over the site to hundreds of unpaid moderators. Each admin has a one-fifth stake in the boards.ie parent company, Boards, Ltd. [9] One stakeholder, Gerry Shanahan, holds the position of "Managing Director" and is paid full-time by the organization, from income generated by Google Adsense. [10] There are over 1,000 forums, public and private.

A new forum can be proposed by anyone, but requires a certain amount of support from other members. Most users do not pay any usage fees, although subscription is offered with benefits such as free webspace.

[edit] Expansion

The boards.ie site took its successful formula for web forums and created a number of sites aimed around other countries, including boards.us (United States), boards.jp (Japan), boards.com.cn (China), and boards.co.nz (New Zealand). Sites associated with social networking (social.ie) have been started as well.

[edit] Awards

For his contribution to the site, Tom Murphy was awarded a Net Visionary Award by the Irish Internet Association in 2004 in the "Social Collaboration" category. [11]

Dr. Breslin was awarded Net Visionary Awards by the Irish Internet Association in 2005 [12] and 2006[13].

boards.ie was awarded a Zeddy [14] in 2001. (The Zeddy Awards have since been discontinued.)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Boran, Marie. "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", Irish Independent, 2008-02-14. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. 
  2. ^ Gordon, Smith. "Boards.ie acquires Boards Group in expansion play", Siliconrepublic.com, 2007-02-08. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. 
  3. ^ Boran, Marie. "John Breslin", Siliconrepublic.com, 2002-02-18. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. 
  4. ^ Mulley, Damien. "A new Net visioned He - Interview with John Breslin", Mulley.Net, 2005-12-05. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. 
  5. ^ Stewart, David. "The Friday Interview: Tom Murphy, Boards.ie", Siliconrepublic.com, 2005-02-11. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. 
  6. ^ Lillington, Karlin. "Boards.ie knows how to get people talking", ireland.com, 2003. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. 
  7. ^ Gordon, Smith. "Boards.ie acquires Boards Group in expansion play", Siliconrepublic.com, 2007-02-08. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. 
  8. ^ Boran, Marie. "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", Irish Independent, 2008-02-14. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. 
  9. ^ Boran, Marie. "John Breslin", Siliconrepublic.com, 2002-02-18. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. 
  10. ^ Lillington, Karlin. "Boards.ie knows how to get people talking", ireland.com, 2003. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. 
  11. ^ Stewart, David. "The Friday Interview: Tom Murphy, Boards.ie", Siliconrepublic.com, 2005-02-11. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. 
  12. ^ netvisionary.ie (2005-11-17). L-R: IIA Chairman Colm Lyon, Category Award winner John Breslin of Boards.ie with Category Sponsor David Curtin of IE Domain Registry. Retrieved on 2008-06-11.
  13. ^ netvisionary.ie (2006-11-16). IIA Chairman Colm Lyon, Online Trader winner John Breslin (boards.ie/adverts.ie) and Category Sponsor Stephen McDonagh of Realex Payments. Retrieved on 2008-06-11.
  14. ^ Ireland.com (2001-08-31). 2001 Zeddy Winners (Archive of Announcement). Retrieved on 2008-06-11.

[edit] External links

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