25 replies to this topic

[bbcentral]

I was going through my archives and found something quite funny...

The very first Blues Brothers website I ever made!

A little bit of background:
I was in my second to last year of high school, I already had my own personal homepage (which was so rubbish I don't think a copy exists anywhere).
I was looking up the Blues Brothers, and came across a fansite on Geocities:
http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/picture/1752
It was called "When It's Blues You Want", and the owner (her name was Annie) had a notice saying she no longer wanted to run the site. She was asking for someone to take over, so I emailed her, and shortly afterwards she sent me all the login details. I completely redesigned and rebuilt the site and moved it to a new address.

This is the final product:


It's hideously bad. It had a splash screen with a Flash button that says "hit it" to enter the site. The menu is made of Flash, and so is the homescreen. The page for the band members was just a photo of everyone in the movie band, with their name underneath. The multimedia page had links to 5 files.

The site stayed that way for a few years, until in 2003 where I rebuilt the site again.
I did this for 2 reasons. One was that the site looked so bad I was ashamed to have it in my portfolio! And the other was that I needed another project to keep my programming skills up to date.
So I ended up with this:


I started getting a lot of positive feedback from fans, most of them were asking the same questions and starting conversations with me. That's when I redesigned the site and added a forum:


I redesigned the site again:


And then once more after the 25th Anniversary:


Then in 2006 I started rebuilding the site from scratch for the first time since 2003. Previously I had only ever given the site a makeover, the site we had until a few weeks ago ran on the same code that I built in 2003 with only minor improvements!

I think it's interesting to get some history on where this site came from and how far it's progressed! :D

[Blueblood]

With all my technical prowess, I couldn't even run the first site!

Seeing evolution and growth is awesome, be it a recording artist, an actor or a pimple faced High Schooler working with code...

You have a lot to be proud of since those early, dank days of the internet. Have you ever heard from Annie? Was she an Aussie as well? How deep were her interests in the blues??

Interesting stuff for a slow Sunday Chris! Thanks for the trip down memory lane..!

[bbcentral]

Blueblood said:

Have you ever heard from Annie? Was she an Aussie as well? How deep were her interests in the blues??

I spoke to her briefly on MSN a few years ago, she had no idea who I was

She wasn't from Australia, I believe she was from Denmark. Annie Lysebjerg was her name (I think I'm spelling that correctly!)

I don't think she's had anything to do with the Blues Brothers for 10 years, maybe she lost interest and that's why she wanted to get rid of the website?

[Steam McQueen]

That's so cool watching the evolution of the site. It's great for those of us who joined after the earlier versions. Very interesting, Chris. Y'know, I've learned things about computers just from being a member here. I suppose I've kinda evolved myself. lol

[IMG2]http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r71/Steam_McQueen/P1/P2/P3/P4/evolution.gif[/IMG2]

Thanks, Chris! And thanks, Annie!

:D:BB:

[bbcentral]

Steam McQueen said:

That's so cool watching the evolution of the site. It's great for those of us who joined after the earlier versions. Very interesting, Chris. Y'know, I've learned things about computers just from being a member here. I suppose I've kinda evolved myself. lol

Oh this site has done wonders for my programming skills! I've reused bits of code from this site on all kinds of projects!

My favorite part on the new site is the wallpapers page, where it resizes images to different resolutions, the programming behind it is ridiculously complex but it works flawlessly! All kinds of variables to take into account, for example if the original is only 1024 pixels wide it can't allow you to download a 1280 pixel wide wallpaper. And if it's a wallpaper for an iPhone etc, it has to crop the image to size, but it has to use the middle of the image (or else you'd get a wallpaper of a the objects in the background )

[3LW00D]

Hey cool! Nice to see how it all started. The site sure has come a long way, neat!

[bbcentral]

3LW00D said:

Hey cool! Nice to see how it all started. The site sure has come a long way, neat!

And I've got plans for it to go even further

[GreenOnion]

I think all your website-creations look great (except for the first, lol). And they keep getting better and better.

[George Thorson]

So if it was not for Annie and you would BBC still be here:shock:

[elizabeth]

That was fun to see how it all started. That's the work of a true genius!

[Petesilverfox]

bbcentral said:

And I've got plans for it to go even further

I totally love the way you have successfully globally united like minded people.
There are some in our world who should try and take a leaf out of the BBC story.....
Looking forward to the next regeneration!

[bbcentral]

George Thorson said:

So if it was not for Annie and you would BBC still be here:shock:

Nope, Blues Brothers Central would never have existed!
And the biggest Blues Brothers fansite would probably still be the Blues Brothers FAQ.
Or that alt.fans.bluesbrothers newsgroup (which is full of spam).
Maybe takkuneg would have done a bigger site, or created a community of her own.
I guess we can't really tell what might have been, but I doubt anyone else would have invested as much time (and money!) into a fansite
All up I think I've spent around USD$10,000 on Blues Brothers Central since 2003.
Sounds like a lot, but that doesn't take into account earnings from Amazon.com etc.
Can't wait until Halloween, that usually covers 3-4 months worth of running costs in one hit

elizabeth said:

That was fun to see how it all started. That's the work of a true genius!

You're too kind! :D

Petesilverfox said:

I totally love the way you have successfully globally united like minded people.
There are some in our world who should try and take a leaf out of the BBC story.....
Looking forward to the next regeneration!

This site didn't really take off until some members emailed me and suggested that we add some kind of forum, I think the Soul Food Cafe is still the most important part of the whole site!

[Petesilverfox]

bbcentral said:

This site didn't really take off until some members emailed me and suggested that we add some kind of forum, I think the Soul Food Cafe is still the most important part of the whole site!

Definitely!

[Cropper Classic]

Great to see the changes - quite the progression!

[Petesilverfox]

...the Arcade's really addictive!!!

[Elwood Jake]

Kool history man youv'e got a lot to be proud of dude!!

[All_Or_Nothing]

Steam McQueen said:

That's so cool watching the evolution of the site. It's great for those of us who joined after the earlier versions. Very interesting, Chris. Y'know, I've learned things about computers just from being a member here. I suppose I've kinda evolved myself. lol

[IMG2]http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r71/Steam_McQueen/P1/P2/P3/P4/evolution.gif[/IMG2]

Thanks, Chris! And thanks, Annie!

:D:BB:

best evolution ever !!
always laughing my ass off when i see it haha :D

bbcentral said:

And I've got plans for it to go even further

ooh !

[Elwood+]

I suppose all I can say is congratulations! Man Chris, to put in the time, effort, research, and funds that you did to build this site up, I would call it quits after the first product. Wow, just...congrats man. I seriously consider you to be one of the major reasons the Blues Brothers are still alive today. You truly are a Soul Man. Oh I almost forgot, this site is fantastic! Good luck with your future doings.

[TakkunEG]

bbcentral said:

She wasn't from Australia, I believe she was from Denmark. Annie Lysebjerg was her name (I think I'm spelling that correctly!)

I remember her, actually. And that site too. Back in the days...I think I exchanged some emails with her. She may have been on some of the old Yahoo Groups. (Which I can't believe anyone even uses anymore. I'm on two of them for my letterboxing hobby, and I still hate them.)

[dodgemonaco]

Chris,

I think you have done a great job on this site. Build it and they will come.