GA Media founder Gary-Alan overhauled GayWideWebmasters' design and functionality to better serve its loyal following of adult webmasters and improve on some ideas that had been in the works for years but hadn't been fully actualized.
"Everyday it's been up, I've always been looking for something that I could improve upon, something that was professional and that I enjoyed working with," he told XBiz. "Finally we put it all together."
GA Media produces a cluster of resource sites for both the adult and non-adult online industry, including EuropeanWebmasters.com, SourceCoding.com, FemaleWebmasters.com, EbonyWebmasters.com, and the GA Media webmaster toolbar.
Along with the new design, GayWideWebmasters has streamlined its information base, added new forums, increased the number of articles, created a faster response rate to webmasters, and re-instated its bi-weekly newsletter.
"The new forums are a big point," Gary-Alan told XBiz. "We are now using PHP-based programming language, which gives the webmasters a lot more flexibility in what they are posting as well as more room to add information."
GayWideWebmasters also added three new moderators: Don of Ounique will head up the content forums, Scorpio of Scorpio Creation will take on the design forum, and Luke of Chili Host will handle the site's technical and hosting questions.
Founded in 1998 by Gary-Alan, GayWideWebmasters is the culmination of nearly ten years of dedication to expanding the gay webmaster market from what started out as just a niche in the mid-nineties and eventually became a dominate industry force.
"This is my baby," Gary-Alan told XBiz. "I started the site as a labor of love and it has undergone a number of transformations since I opened it. I have been looking for something that was just right, and I think we found it this time."
Gary-Alan added that when he first started out in the adult entertainment industry in 1996 as director of advertising for YNOT, there were very few opportunities out there for webmasters looking to expand into the gay market.
"There was maybe one posting board that was infrequently updated," Gary-Alan said. "That was in the days when you could really make a lot of money off a free gay site."
Originally GayWideWebmasters got its start by serving the small community of gay and straight webmasters in that space, but over the years it grew significantly in its following and resource features and is now considered one of the leading gay resource sites for both gay and straight webmasters.
"If you give the surfer what they want and you communicate and listen to them, loyalty becomes a huge factor," Gary-Alan told XBiz. "But if you treat them like faceless shadow they can be fiercely disloyal. It's very important to make sure that you give that surfer what they want and you talk to them. Know that they exist."
