History of Ubersite Part I (3083 hits)
Category: NewsRating: 1.78 on 32 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Bart Cilfone <uberuser.at.cilfone.com> (View user info) at 2003-06-30 19:12:16 EDT
I originally started writing this under the "How'd ya find out?" post, but then figured I should put it in a separate thread.
I found boredatwork.com because a friend of mine (let's call him "Phil") thought it sounded like a good name. I was going to visit him on the fourth of July five years ago and decided I should register the name before I saw him. We went through an initial iteration where we were going to setup the site with movie reviews and such, but that takes time. I wanted to set it up with games, stories and jokes (ie. "short attention span theater"), but unfortunately that also takes time. I decided to make it into a site where people could build their own webpages, post pictures, sounds, etc. thereby each contributing in some small way to a singular larger entity. Knowing the evil that underlies most "singular larger entities", I knew that if I had final say, I could guarantee that this singular larger entity maintained its sense of freedom and artistic integrity. This seemed like an attractive idea.
The problem with this idea is that it depends too much on strangers. They have to either build web pages from scratch with html, or they have to use some predefined template put together by me. If they build their own web pages, chances are that most of them will look like crap, as do most publicly visible websites. If it's a templated model, the more technologically inclined users would be turned off by the template, so the site would wind up attracting the lowest common denominator of web users, sort of like a McDonalds.
I had the "you build your own website" thing up and running for a while, but it was very tedious - too much up front effort required, and in the end, not very interesting. This is when I decided to remove all that functionality and just make boredatwork.com a carefully chosen list of links to other sites that I thought were funny. Side note: because I hate when sites take down information, any of the stuff uploaded during that "build your own website" stretch is still available, eg.: http://www.boredatwork.com/users/universer/ I have no idea who the guy is that made this, but for some reason he decided to put together this mini-page dedicated to his hatred of Bill Gates. This got me thinking...
Why not make it very easy for someone to convey a simple message? That's it. You have something to say? Say it. HTML is nice for some things. Graphics, java plugins, tables, frames, embedded midi files, animated gifs, VRML - these kinds of things are nice about 1% of the time and the rest of the time they're annoying as shit.
Revelation.
While everyone else is making things blink faster and louder and with more annoyance than ever, why don't I make something that does so little that it can't possibly fail? I could make something like a newsgroup that wasn't a newsgroup. It would be like a chat room, but not really. It would be a search engine only moreso. It would let you write things, read things, comment on things, rate things, find things, link to things, and organize things. You could submit things from a web form, by sending emails, whatever. You could read things via web page, email, custom client-side interface, XML, RSS, mozilla tab, whatever. Best of all, the "interest" factor would be solely dependent on the people coming to the site - it's impossible to fail.
Think about that... the basis of capitalism - greed - turned from the side of money grubbing evil over to the side of this creative "new economy" art. People come to the site because they want to be entertained. If they aren't entertained, they will influence the site to make it more entertaining. It's so simple, but practically revolutionary.
This site would be better than all others. Most sites have some distinct goal - the best "car site", the best "search engine", the best "online bookstore", etc. This site would be better than all those because it's only goal, it's only reason for existing was to be better than all other sites. Sort of like the last step in an old evolutionary chain that spawns a new line of evolution, it would be the pinnacle of all actions leading to its creation. Everything old would be destroyed and everything new would be a descendent of this.
The only thing I needed was a clever name. Something that could potentially encompass everything from the aforementioned games, jokes, and movie reviews to other things like politics and short stories. Some name that was clever and memorable, but would also stir thoughts of a site that was better than all others so much so that it would inevitably destroy them.
That's when the name came to me:
QBar
To be continued....
User Reviews
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-02-26 13:11:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Calios (user info) at 2006-02-27 04:53:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by kochier (user info) at 2005-01-30 19:49:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
part 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/25325
Submitted by Creepy_guy (user info) at 2004-10-15 02:51:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Blah-di-frickin-dah (user info) at 2003-09-27 22:59:48 (#)
Ranking: 2
Ubersite rules. Thanks for bestowing it upon us.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2004-10-15 02:33:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I thought I saw a part two of this once upon a time. But it might have all been in my imagination...
Submitted by cigar (user info) at 2004-10-15 02:13:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Come on, you lazy fuck. Get away from your "real" life, and put up part two....DAMNIT
Submitted by spedmonkey (user info) at 2004-06-29 15:01:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well, a year later, and still no part 2. C'mon Bart, you left it on a cliffhanger.
Submitted by SausageKing (user info) at 2004-05-06 01:51:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Was there ever a part II for this?
Submitted by Scott_James (user info) at 2004-03-02 22:43:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Since there are a lot of new folk here, I feel the unnitiated might benefit from having this on the Recently Reviewe section.
Submitted by fr33d0mrulz (user info) at 2003-12-31 19:08:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Thanks for the site...we get to do whatever we want...true entrepenuer at his best...those who rated badly(lower than a 2) on this wouldn't even be writing these criticisms on this website if it didn't even exist...thank you, bart
Submitted by Cassiopeia (user info) at 2003-11-01 17:17:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
awesome.
Submitted by Choppa (user info) at 2003-10-16 01:30:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
God bless Uber.
Uber Sweet Uber.
Uber is like beer on a Friday arvo.
Submitted by Blah-di-frickin-dah (user info) at 2003-09-27 22:59:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ubersite rules. Thanks for bestowing it upon us.
Submitted by sendmehatemail (user info) at 2003-08-04 04:04:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
thank you bart for being the badass yet motivated person you are... err, thank you for paying this wonderful thing... even if you are mean to me.
Submitted by securis (user info) at 2003-07-07 21:42:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yay, my underwear are all mushy!
Submitted by RWang (user info) at 2003-07-04 20:43:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very nice. I think every site should have a history like this.
Submitted by hidden101 (user info) at 2003-07-02 13:39:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
hooray for Übersite! hooray for bart! hooray for... school!
Submitted by Nicole3 (user info) at 2003-07-01 09:02:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Here is another +2 because you are one bad-ass motherfucker who created a great site and not because of the content of this post (Gasp!!)
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2003-07-01 09:01:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm just excited that there is no flashing banner or popups. It makes it much easier for me to give off the appearance that I'm deeply engrossed in a research project when I'm here.
Submitted by Nicole3 (user info) at 2003-07-01 09:00:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Background info (goddamnit, how do you type monkey anticipation/happy sounds).
Submitted by Hadooken (user info) at 2003-07-01 08:05:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This backstory takes all the hours of pissing away time I should be working, and gives it a great important meaning. I feel just by being here I am doing my part in a greater cause than office work.
Submitted by Cymensen (user info) at 2003-07-01 02:38:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
w007 Ubersite should have it's own holiday.
Submitted by Pacifist248 (user info) at 2003-07-01 01:02:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"Everything old would be destroyed and everything new would be a descendent of this."
"Some name that was clever and memorable, but would also stir thoughts of a site that was better than all others so much so that it would inevitably destroy them."
If you have yet to take the geek test, you could easily check the "made a plan to take over the world" box.
Submitted by antluvdog (user info) at 2003-06-30 23:33:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I love Ubersite!
Submitted by firefly (user info) at 2003-06-30 21:22:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Razor says:
+2
Submitted by firefly (user info) at 2003-06-30 21:22:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Razor says:
Err, Ubersite IS immensely popular and famous... it gets over a million hits per month, or viewed another way, over 30,000 hits per day.
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2003-06-30 19:40:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Simplicity, thy name is Über.
Submitted by Jimmy (user info) at 2003-06-30 19:37:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Ubersite would be shit if it became world famous and hugely popular. If that happened, I'd make a new and secret site for all the original members to evacuate to. I'd call it Ulterior Site, and nothing would be as it seems, like that zone with the twighlight.
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2003-06-30 19:24:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i like history.
Submitted by Fabish (user info) at 2003-06-30 19:22:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
HAHAHAha...QBar...
I think, if your goal was for it to become the greatest webpage, not by hits, not by users, not by any real statistics, just by the fact that it is still running, and everything seems to be going as planned, than you've acquired your goal a long time ago, and you might be surpassing it.
Submitted by HeavensWalls (user info) at 2003-06-30 19:22:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by catscradle (user info) at 2003-06-30 19:19:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
And of course you can't have a "Q" without a "U", or perhaps better put, a "Ü".