AWNews

AWNews
"Discover What's New"
Founded	April, 2000
Founder	Cybor
Current Owner	GSK
Website	news.awcom.me

AWNews is an online newspaper that is produced by GSK, with content also submitted by the community. AWNews has received a Cy Award twice, once in 2001 and again in 2004 for Best Active Worlds Themed Website. It was relaunched in 2014 as a service of AWCom; prior to its relaunch, it was produced weekly by Maki.

Overview

AWNews is a news web site pertaining to Active Worlds that is in the style of a weekly newspaper. It is regularly updated by a small core of volunteers, as well as other users who wish to advertise an event or location.

Content

AWNews article types include interviews, road trips (world/location reviews), current events, opinion articles, features, series, and more. AWNews does not have a policy of omitting content considered negative towards Activeworlds, Inc. or the AW community differing it from other news sources such as the AWNewsletter. During AWI's years as a public business, AWNews would report their profits.

In addition to weekly articles, AWNews also supports polls and user comments in a portal format.

History

Establishment

"Well, there's been plenty of hard work getting the site to this point and I anticipate plenty more to come. A lot of the stuff here is broken (as you might have noticed), and it's all marked with [x] or [disabled] to let you know. My opinion is that AW needs something like this to bring the community into the hands of the citizens, so here it is. Anyway, if you like it or hate it, let me know, feedback is important. The most important thing is to keep this place updated, and it's a pretty simple process as long as people submit stuff, so do so! The site will move to a better location once it's finished (however long that takes...) but for now this should do. Enjoy :) Comments? Drop me a line."

Cybor
April 20, 2000

The above quote is the first article published by Cybor to the AWNews web site as found in the current-day database.

AWNews was founded by Cybor in April, 2000. Citizens TRC and Nornny had already started an AW-related newspaper called the ActiveWorlds Advocate (AWA) while AWNews was still in conception. At Cybor's announcement, Nornny took an interest and offered to merge with AWNews or otherwise lend his talent. Ultimately, AWNews was the lasting organization of the two.

Leadership & Change

Leaders of AWNews over the years include Nornny, Goober King, and maki. During AWI's years as a public business, AWNews would report their profits.

The web site was converted to the PostNuke Content Management System during the Goober King era. Under the leadership of maki, the site has seen several changes to design, programs, and features. The AWNews Cover was introduced when maki re-launched the web site in 2003. It features all of the latest headlines, polls, and other content for the week. Maki also introduced staff membership programs to encourage content creation in an organized fashion. Since 2003, the site has seen three major design changes.

On January 28, 2007, awnews.org was re-launched with an all new look and content management system after two weeks of downtime. The site now runs on Drupal, as opposed to PostNuke.

In July 2014, AWNews was relaunched with a completely new design and content management system, as a service of AWCom.

Transfer of Ownership

In August 2002, Goober King acquired AWNews from Cybor. Thinking a domain transfer to Goober King would have been tedious, Cybor allowed awnews.com to expire, which was quickly registered by mostwanteddomains.com. The site put the domain up for sale at a price of $10, 000. Much controversy was sparked by this event and the owner became very aggressive with AW community members who were sending him angry e-mails.

Goober King soon registered awnews.org as a replacement, even though the war between the AW community and "Worldwide Media, Inc., " owner of mostwanteddomains.com, raged on. It was several months before Goober King had AWNews back online, blaming disappearing programmers and limited interest in submission of content as reason for the delay. The community was delighted to see the return of AWNews when it was finally re-opened.

Approximately one year after Goober King acquired the site, he attempted to close it. In a final edition of his popular "Stirring The Virtual Melting Pot" series, Goober King told readers that he was Rick Noll, and that AWNews was a hobby project in the biggest hobby project of them all: Active Worlds. After the announcement, citizen maki inquired about taking over the site from Goober King, who agreed to the request.

On November 29, 2003, maki re-opened awnews.org under his ownership. The site has been owned and operated by maki since. While articles and writing styles found on the site were less than professional at its re-opening, it has gradually improved and now has more strict requirements. Recognizing the lack of user contributions, maki converted AWNews to a weekly publication.

In July 2014, GSK relaunched AWNews as a service of AWCom.

External links

• Official website