Who Was The First Poster...

[HevyMetal]

on JSF when it started?.....(other than John himself)...

Who were the first 10 posters?

It would nice to see an archived page of the very first day.....

If that's possible.....


Was just interested in how the very first day at JSF went...

[guava]

Originally Posted by HevyMetal

on JSF when it started?.....(other than John himself)...

Who were the first 10 posters?

It would nice to see an archived page of the very first day.....

If that's possible.....


Was just interested in how the very first day at JSF went...

There's the wayback machine.
126 pages for 2004. They missed the first day of action, but it's still pretty cool.

Here's a thread from the first week the forums were around:
http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/showthread.php?t=86

Originally Posted by acappy

I was just wondering...it seems as if everyone here is already fit, and/or has a great start. Are there any members who are just starting out? I am, but I feel a bit intimidated when everyone is mostly discussing things that they have already implemented...like, 'Oh well I'm in really good shape I just needs to tone my tummy...' I wanted to hear from people who found this sight inspiring and are trying to get started, anyone fit that description?

Thanks

These were the first members, starting January 20, 2004. It grew pretty quickly.

[John Stone]

Very interesting question...

The forums went live first thing in the morning on January 21, 2004.

The very first JSF poster was IrishJimmie, who started the thread "Good luck John boy" at 7:47 AM EST.

[HevyMetal]

John...from reading your Jan 21/2004 post, it seems as if there was quite a bit going on before you made it "official'...what with all the e-mails you were getting beforehand..

It sounds as if there was already some kind of site up and running but it just wasn't called John Stone Fitness....

Was it some kind of "home page"...?

BTW thanks Guava....

[John Stone]

Originally Posted by HevyMetal

John...from reading your Jan 21/2004 post, it seems as if there was quite a bit going on before you made it "official'...what with all the e-mails you were getting beforehand..

It sounds as if there was already some kind of site up and running but it just wasn't called John Stone Fitness....


Was it some kind of "home page"...?

Yeah, the forum wasn't started until over a year after the main site was up. The main site started off as a single page on my personal web site (www.twowiresthin.com).

Here is a timeline of the early history of JSF:

--

January 6, 2003: Transformation started. I posted a single page on my personal web page that contained nothing but one image: my "before" profile picture (I remember being too embarrassed to post my front picture). This page was hidden, and not linked anywhere. I only gave the URL out to my family and close friends so they could watch my progress.

Each day I updated the page with that day's picture, and I did a simple animation to flip back and forth between my "before" picture and the current picture.

The site was run on a web server at my house. It was served over a broadband cable modem connection which, at the time, was more than enough bandwidth.


February 6, 2003: I started posting my daily food logs, and writing what would eventually be known as my "Daily updates". Regrettibly, I didn't start archiving my daily updates until June, 2003.


February 10, 2003: I found bodybuilding.com, and decided to go public with my weight loss page for the very first time: I choked back my fear and started the thread "Fat and Pathetic". Note that I was still only showing my profile pictures at this point. I indicated in that thread that I was going to start taking pictures from "other angles"; the truth is I was already doing that, but so mortified by how I looked that I couldn't bear to post them.

Over the next few months I began to slowly add new features to the site: training information, personal stats, FAQ, the weight chart, etc... I also began to post my "front" before and current photos.


April 19, 2003: I won bodybuilding.com's "Transformation of the month" (they later changed this to "Transformation of the week", but back then it was awarded monthly--if that). Bodybuilding.com updated my Transformation of the Month page many months later with newer pictures of me. The "during" pictures you see there now were actually the original "after" photos.

My site starting getting a lot more hits over the next few months...


June 11, 2003: I started archiving my Daily News updates.


January 2004: Traffic exploded. The site went completely viral: it was posted on social networking sites like Fark and reddit, and from there all over the net. I was doing phone and email interviews with major newspapers all around the world. I started getting hundreds of emails every day after being featured on the front page of Norway's largest newspaper, Verdens Gang. The printed article was two full pages, and it was also published online. Here's the online article. About the same time Sweden's largest newspaper, Aftonbladet, did a feature on me. I was spending entire weekends answering email. 100 new emails would arrive before I'd answered 50. I was pretty much in shock. It all happened so fast, and I didn't really understand why.


January 13, 2004: I decided to register a domain name to separate my fitness page from my personal web site. www.johnstonefitness.com was born.


January 21, 2004: I was getting lots of requests to start a forum, and decided that it was a good idea. The JSF forums went live on this day.


February 14, 2004: My cable modem connection and the server I was using for the forum and JSF were constantly overwhelmed. The site was so bogged down that hardly anyone could get through, and those who did found it to be so slow that it was all but unusable. I'd been working on a new server, and on this day it was deployed to a datacenter in downtown Orlando with ample bandwidth.


--

So much has happened since then, but that's how JSF was born!

[phillydude]

Originally Posted by John Stone

Here is a timeline of the early history of JSF:

This should be stickied somewhere.

[rtestes]

I remember Kino told me and some others to drop by and take a look. I never looked back.

[Seltzer]

John, thanks for that recap.

[elmodefoque]

Very kool John.

Btw, your Entertainment System and TV are ssssiiiiiiccckkkkk!!!!!

[Sole]

Whoa...guess I've been around here since the very start -- join date of January 27th, 2004!

Perhaps I should plan a little 5-year update/thank you thread...hmmm.....

Congrats, John, on the successful site and your constantly evolving fitness progress. We owe you many thanks!

[HevyMetal]

Thanks John for the in-depth chronography...

[MAD180]

Very interesting to see how the site and you have grown over the past couple of years John. Congratulations once again, im sure your probably feel half the age you were when you started!

[pniemczyk]

Man, it's so cool to go back and read about beginnings, especially inspiring beginnings like John's. It also serves as a reminder that you never know what will happen with dedication hard work, as depicted in both John's transformation and this awesome website/community. Thumbs up to you, John!

[jgmx]

I remeber when it was only the main page before the forums. I was a member of a car's forum and somebody posted the transformation picture slide; that's how I found out about john.

[Jono]

im posting this to see my join date.