| URL | www.pinoyexchange.com |
|---|---|
| Type of site | internet forum |
| Registration | Optional |
| Owner | Michael "batanguliran" Nolledo |
| Created by | Michael "batanguliran" Nolledo |
| Launched | July 12, 1999 |
| Revenue | Advertisement, optional subscription (discontinued) |
| Current status | online |
Pinoy Exchange (PEx) is a Filipino online message board community founded by Dr. Michael Nolledo a.k.a. "batanguliran" with help from close family members on July 12, 1999. As of September 15, 2010, PEX has 49,248,745 posts made by 391,809 members, making it the largest message board in the country by far.
PEX was originally conceptualized by the New Jersey-based Dr. Michael Nolledo as an outlet for Filipinos to discuss and debate local issues. Hindered by geographical limitations, Michael enlisted the help of his brother Nix Nolledo a.k.a. Nix, his brother-in-law Marco Lucena a.k.a. marco (who was later replaced by Michael Palacios a.k.a. Mikoid as lead designer and technical consultant), and most importantly his nephew Jude Turcuato a.k.a. Kaboom! who helped generate interest by plugging the forum during televised UAAP basketball games in which he worked as a commentator.
Although the forum reached 2,000 members before the turn of the century it was not until Sprite's 2001 ad campaign that PEX enjoyed its highest exposure. As a result of the rapid increase in traffic, PEX upgraded its dated, CGI-based Ultimate Bulletin Board software to the more robust PHP-powered VBulletin and introduced "Premium Packages" in which subscribers gain added features.
\ places advertisements (occasionally Flash-based) in various parts of the board in order to pay for their hosting bills, a fact that can't be underscored enough by constant "server busy" messages and downtime. Unfortunately this move elicited scorn from a select few who equated the ad-placements to greed and monopoly [1] although there have been many local Internet forums that have attempted to compete with PEX through the years such as the short-lived Rebelde who paid members for their contributions.
Other gripes concern features that are found in other message boards such as avatars and signatures that were available at one point but subsequently removed due to nagging bandwidth issues.[2] To address this, PEX introduced PEX Plus in 2001 that allows subscribers to make use of the aforementioned features in addition to search capabilities (a feature open to normal users nowadays) and exclusion from "server busy" messages; the service is currently in hiatus.