WebChat Broadcasting System

WebChat Broadcasting System (or WBS for short) was a virtual community that existed during the 1990s. It was founded in 1990 in Menlo Park, California. Supported by online advertising, it was one of few services like it at the time to offer free integrated community services including chat, homesteading, messaging, and user profiles.

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Audience

WBS offered an array of chat rooms categorized into "hubs." A large number of these rooms were dedicated to affinity groups based on age, race/ethnicity, religion, and sexuality. Others were specific to topics such as dating, entertainment, computers and the internet, travel, video games, roleplaying games, and the arts.

Known rooms

General hub

* Have a Friend
* Hallway
* Hot Tub
* Current Events/Politics
* WebTV
* The Pool
* Flirt room

Age specific hub

* Preteen
* Teen 13-15
* Teen 16-19
* Teen Terrace
* Twentysomething
* Thirtysomething
* Fortysomething
* Fifty Plus

International and ethnic hub

* Habla Espanol?
* African-American
* British
* Mexican
* Native American
* Filipino
* Italian
* Europe

upport and lifestyles hub

*Atheist
* Big People
* Christian
* College Chat
* Comics 'n Stuff
* Cowboy Talk
* Girl Talk
* Gothic Cathedral
* Guy Talk
* Psych Central
* Sex Talk
* Book Talk
* Edgewise Cafe (a poetry chatroom)
* Pagan - Wicca Chat
* Spirituality
* Alternative Music

Roleplaying and special interest hub

* Anime
* alt.tv.simpsons (The Simpsons)
* Glenshadow's Tavern [ [http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:gr2MWh6He7UJ:www.wbs.net/forums/showthread.php%3Ft%3D45075%26page%3D1+glenshadow%27s+tavern&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5&client=firefox-a wbs.net forums thread] regarding activity of Glenshadow's Tavern following the buyout of WBS, a [http://home.neo.rr.com/dolenore/old/glenmap.jpgmap of the Tavern] , and a [http://home.neo.rr.com/dolenore/old/glens.jpgthumbnail of the Tavern logo] ] hosted by Chris Schiebel and Sharon Yeates (later renamed to Nia's Tavern)
* Nia's Tavern [ [http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Labyrinth/5860/index.html Geocities page] for Nia's before it was closed] hosted by David Garcia and Sharon Yeates [David Garcia and Sharon Yeates now own [http://fateslabyrinth.net Fate's Labyrinth] ]
* Inn of the Weary Traveller [Inn of the Weary Traveller is located at the [http://www.worldbroadcastingsystem.net World Broadcasting System] ]
* Battledome
* World of Darkness
* Sailor (Moon) Soldiers
* Star Trek AKA The Nexus Bar
* NinRPG AKA The Truce Inn
* The Star Wars Cantina
* Roland's Cavern [Roland's Cavern relocated to [http://www.rolandscavern.com/ RolandsCavern.com] in 1996]
* Highlander
* Rec. Music Classical
* Big Bands
* Alt. Music
* Industrial Music
* Punkers Palace
* Trivia
* The Realm of Elahrair
* The Dark Citadel
* DOOM Freaks
* Dragonhold
* Dragondale City (DDC)
* Silvermoon Forest
* Valley of the Lunar Rainbow [ [http://groups.myspace.com/valleyofthelunarrainbow Valley of the Lunar Rainbow MySpace community] ]
* X-Philers
* Nails Ginjoint
* NetLinkORama
* Nintendo Fans
* WolfSamurai Castle
* X Mansion

Famous Personalities

* Master Fat Sack
* Archedge
* Suicidal Snowman
* Sir Turnip The Terrible

Growth

In February 1997, WBS reached a milestone of 1 million registered users, accruing 4,000 new registered users and 5.5 million page views every day. At this point, it was featuring 200 individual affinity groups. Within a week of the launch of a new feature to allow members to create their own home pages, over 15,000 members had begun using it. [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1997_Feb_3/ai_19082095 WebChat Broadcasting System hits 1 million registered users] on [http://www.findarticles.com FindArticles] ]

WBS frequently hosted real-time multimedia programming events, which only increased as its popularity grew. Such events attracted the likes of celebrities such as Tom Clancy, the celebrity cast of Star Trek, bands Soundgarden and Metallica, the former president of PBS, Lawrence Grossman from NBC News, United States Senator Arlen Specter, Intel CEO Andy Grove and feminist Gloria Steinem. [ [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1995_Nov_20/ai_17769738 Internet Users Flock to WebChat Broadcasting System] on [http://www.findarticles.com FindArticles] ]

Executives

Bayard Winthrop, President and CEO of WBS, was a frequent spokesperson for the company. [ [http://www.businessweek.com/1997/18/b35251.htm Internet Communities] article from BusinessWeek with a quote from Winthrop] After its buyout, he subsequently went on to become CEO of Freeboard, a San Francisco-based sporting goods manufacturer. [ [http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=19467&page=2 Salesforce.com Scoops Microsoft with Team Edition Launch] from [http://www.newsfactor.com NewsFactor Network] ]

Buyout

WBS was bought out in April 1998 by Infoseek for approximately USD 6.7 million (roughly 350,000 shares of Infoseek stock at that time). WBS boasted 2.7 million members, 350,000 member home pages, and an average of over 140 million page views per month (roughly 5 million per day). It was one of the largest and longest-running online communities on the internet. [ [http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,,3_20171,00.html Infoseek to Acquire WebChat Broadcasting System] on [http://www.clickz.com ClickZ News] ] Within the next year, the format of WBS completely changed. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/19961230020729/http://www.wbs.net/ WebChat Broadcasting System] (December 1996) on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ] [ [http://web.archive.org/web/19981206204619/pages.wbs.net/webchat3.so WBS - The best community on the net!] (December 1998) on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ]

In September 1999, Infoseek was bought out by the Go Network. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/19991122041126/http://www.wbs.net/index.html http://www.wbs.net/index.html] (November 1999) on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ] WBS was entirely dismantled without warning. All that was left for the members at that time was a simple message saying, "Go.Com has decided to close down WBS and move its most popular rooms to the chat rooms at Go.Com. Your home pages will still be viewable for an undetermined amount of time. Thank you for supporting WBS during its existence." Six months later, all home pages were completely erased. Fact|date=February 2007

Aftermath

Many displaced members who had previously frequented the roleplaying game rooms on WBS began finding homes in new services that were springing up.

* [http://www.bigbob.com bigbob.com]
* [http://www.ethereal-realms.org Ethereal Realms]
* [http://fateslabyrinth.net Fate's Labyrinth]
* [http://im-chat.com Illusionary Minds Chat]
* [http://infinitybound.net Infinity Bound]
* [http://www.sanguinemdraconis.net Sanguinem Draconis]
* [http://silvercrossings.net Silver Crossings]
* [http://themegaphone.net/hub The Megaphone Chat Community]
* [http://www.whisperingrealmschat.net Whispering Realms Chat]
* [http://www.worldbroadcastingsystem.net World Broadcasting System]

Some patrons of the general topic rooms migrated to sites such as [http://wbsoutcasts.net WBSoutcasts] . [ [http://talhost.net/wbs WBS chat refugees] ] A LiveJournal community was created in the wake of its namesake's disappearance. [ [http://community.livejournal.com/wbs/profile wbs LiveJournal] ] It is suspected that many patrons moved to instant messaging software, the popularity of which was increasing substantially at that time.

Martin Foster developed software that offered several of the features of the original WBS and IFC that had gained popularity. This code has been used in developing numerous chat sites which have attracted many former patrons of the original WBS. Especially those who frequented the roleplaying rooms. It was originally developed to power [http://www.ethereal-realms.org Ethereal Realms] , but the site now merely hosts the software for use on other sites.

WBS Relaunch attempt

A personal attempt spanning over a number of years was made by a former WBS member to resurrect the site. A general time line of the events comprising this effort is included below. The registrar for the wbs.net domain is currently [http://godaddy.com GoDaddy] and its records indicate that the domain was created 27 March 2002 will expire on 1 June 2008. As of 4 July 2007, the domain is not in use.

* May 2002: An individual under the handle of "ChillyBoob" purchases the then-dormant domain wbs.net. The domain holds only a landing page with a guestbook where former members can exchange communications and express opinions regarding the possible resurfacing of WBS. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20020603153211/www.wbs.net/guestbook/index.php Guestbook] on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ]
* September 2002: The site becomes a set of forums organized using the same categorization scheme as the original site. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20020914040806/http://wbs.net/ wbs.net - powered by vBulletin] on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ]
* January 2003: A new landing page appears indicating that plans are underway to add new member services. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20030123192942/http://wbs.net/ wbs.net >> Online Community] (January 2003) on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ]
* April 2003: One of the planned member service offerings is revealed to be free e-mail. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20030406074611/http://www.wbs.net/ wbs.net >> Online Community] (April 2003) on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ]
* November 2003: The site is replaced with a notice to indicate that it has been closed until further notice. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20031127221308/http://wbs.net/ WBS.net >> Online Community] (November 2003) on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ]
* December 2003: The notice is changed to indicate that the site might return in early 2004. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20031219131858/http://www.wbs.net/ WBS.net >> Online Community] (December 2003) on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ]
* February 2004: A new notice is put up stating that private development on the site is in progress and the domain owner has no intention of selling the domain. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20040213202357/http://www.wbs.net/index.html WBS.net >> Online Community] (February 2004) on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ]
* May 2004: The site begins redirecting to the landing page of a different web site, seemingly that of the site's hosting provider, which most likely indicates that the hosting account has become inactive. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20040411103439/www.spiralhost.com/index.html SpiralHost >> Virtual Luxury] on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ]
* June 2004: A new notice is put up indicating that the site is accessible at a new address, which leads to a slightly modified version of the forums from September 2002. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20040609022536/http://www.wbs.net/ Welcome!] on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ]
* August 2004: A new landing page offers a link to the forums as well as new sections for image galleries and games. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20040815074700/http://wbs.net/ WBS.net >> Online Community] (August 2004) on [http://archive.org Internet Archive] ]
* March 2005: wbs.net ceases to function and the site disappears, seemingly without any warning.

References