1 Year Anniversary and our new Discussion Forums

We're celebrating our 1-year anniversary today with this post, and a special announcement...

Our reflections and newest feature

A year of digital camera news...

It was one year ago today, on December 13, 2004, that DigiCamNews first began publishing regular digital photography news updates. That was over one thousand and fifty stories ago, and tens of thousands of visitors ago. The whole time, the site has grown - explosively in some respects, agonizingly slow in others.

To say it has been an interesting and challenging year would be an understatement to the extreme. I've made a few friends along the way, a couple of enemies, and learned a heck of a lot. A few of the "big guys" have actually taken notice, and have been very kind: Steve Sanders of Steve's Digicams, Dave Etchells from The Imaging Resource, and Mark Peters from Let's Go Digital have been among the most cool.

I've also had a few supporters close to home. Mike Anderson, a St. Louis area "old dog" from my radio days, has been extremely supportive, and is a nice guy to boot. Julie McFarland from JM Graphic Arts supplied our awesome logo. If only the rest of the site looked as good...

But of course the two best supporters of all are family. My beautiful wife Toni was the one told me to not just dream about the site, but to make it happen. I think she's regretted that statement at times, enduring nights with me working until 2 AM (or later) and starting as early as 4 AM. The other "biggest fan" is my father, Dennis Gordon, who happens to be the other half of XLU Publishing. Without his support at the beginning, the whole thing simply wouldn't have happened. And Best Cruise News really will go live any day now!

So where do we go from here? We will continue to work hard to make this site one of the best places on the Internet for digital camera information. To that end, we are announcing a new feature to get you involved: effective tomorrow, DigiCamNews will be hosting forums where you can drop by, hang out, and talk about your favorite digital photography subjects. We'll do our best to keep it clean, friendly, and helpful for everyone. Enjoy; the best is yet to come!

-- Matt Gordon
XLU Publishing