Congrats
Today is a big day for DevBest; it's the day that we can say that we have been around for a year. But it's a lot more than just that - it's the day that we can look back on the year, and see how much that we have progressed as a community.
Our Story
We started out as a small forum powered by MyBB, on a subdomain of TheHabbos. At the time I had no real expectations - I just wanted to develop a small community of people who were mature. I never expected the forums to get as big as they have.
With that being said, the forums took a while to kick off. It took us a little over two months to reach 1,000 posts. The start may have been slow, but you really could see bonds starting to form and everything falling in place - we pushed forward, and community continued to grow.
I think that we made major progress when we became a separate entity from TheHabbos, and became DevBest.com. This move gave us a new identity separate from just Habbo; we became a community of people who had a passion for developing all things in general.
With this new identity in place, there was not a more fitting time to step the forum up a notch, and that's just what we did! A month after changing our domain, we invested in our current forum software - vBulletin. I honestly think that this was one of the best decisions that we could have made. Don't get me wrong, MyBB is an amazing forum software! But, vBulletin says that you are an established forum, and that you are here to stay. Which in return ushered in a much more professional atmosphere, along with familiarity to the user experience all around.
In September of that year we tried a little thing called HOTM to try and boost our user base, and to a degree I think that it was successful. This campaign brought in many users from all around, but not many stayed. However, a few users did stick around, and for that reason it was all worth it.
Shortly after the switch from MyBB to vBulletin we decided that it was time to upgrade from a basic web hosting plan to a dedicated server. This move gave us a lot more freedom to do things, but on top of that it gave us much better speeds all around, which is always nice.
In the following months we made many changes to the forums that were beneficial. For one we added user rank bars, which brought more personality to the posting experience. It also gave members the incentive to strive for something. In those following months we also added VIP subscriptions, which gave members a sort of new identity - and surely made the forums more colorful. We also changed the user group structure as it became apparent that posts were starting to stack up, and it became to easy to achieve a special color for a certain post count. Lastly, during that short time we also upgraded the servers once again to accommodate for the growing demand of DevBest, and other sites hosted by us.
Finally in December of that year we hit 10,000 posts! Which was relatively quick considering it had previously taken us two months to reach only 1,000 posts. This was a great accomplishment for us, and it showed how much we have grown in such a short span of time. It was also a nice feeling to see that all of the changes that we had put in place were having a positive affect.
After December, time flew by with only a few changes until this current point in time. We added a few new subscriptions based on user demand, along with various changes to how subscriptions were handled. We also added a few new sections to the forums to help appeal to other interests that they may have, and branch out from purely development.
So now I sit here, with one year down and thinking about the future. I hope that you all stick along for the ride, because we are not going anywhere but forward.
Your Story
Share your story with us!
Special Thanks
I'd like to say thanks to all of the staff that have helped out this past year! You guys truly are warriors.
Today is a big day for DevBest; it's the day that we can say that we have been around for a year. But it's a lot more than just that - it's the day that we can look back on the year, and see how much that we have progressed as a community.
Our Story
We started out as a small forum powered by MyBB, on a subdomain of TheHabbos. At the time I had no real expectations - I just wanted to develop a small community of people who were mature. I never expected the forums to get as big as they have.
With that being said, the forums took a while to kick off. It took us a little over two months to reach 1,000 posts. The start may have been slow, but you really could see bonds starting to form and everything falling in place - we pushed forward, and community continued to grow.
I think that we made major progress when we became a separate entity from TheHabbos, and became DevBest.com. This move gave us a new identity separate from just Habbo; we became a community of people who had a passion for developing all things in general.
With this new identity in place, there was not a more fitting time to step the forum up a notch, and that's just what we did! A month after changing our domain, we invested in our current forum software - vBulletin. I honestly think that this was one of the best decisions that we could have made. Don't get me wrong, MyBB is an amazing forum software! But, vBulletin says that you are an established forum, and that you are here to stay. Which in return ushered in a much more professional atmosphere, along with familiarity to the user experience all around.
In September of that year we tried a little thing called HOTM to try and boost our user base, and to a degree I think that it was successful. This campaign brought in many users from all around, but not many stayed. However, a few users did stick around, and for that reason it was all worth it.
Shortly after the switch from MyBB to vBulletin we decided that it was time to upgrade from a basic web hosting plan to a dedicated server. This move gave us a lot more freedom to do things, but on top of that it gave us much better speeds all around, which is always nice.
In the following months we made many changes to the forums that were beneficial. For one we added user rank bars, which brought more personality to the posting experience. It also gave members the incentive to strive for something. In those following months we also added VIP subscriptions, which gave members a sort of new identity - and surely made the forums more colorful. We also changed the user group structure as it became apparent that posts were starting to stack up, and it became to easy to achieve a special color for a certain post count. Lastly, during that short time we also upgraded the servers once again to accommodate for the growing demand of DevBest, and other sites hosted by us.
Finally in December of that year we hit 10,000 posts! Which was relatively quick considering it had previously taken us two months to reach only 1,000 posts. This was a great accomplishment for us, and it showed how much we have grown in such a short span of time. It was also a nice feeling to see that all of the changes that we had put in place were having a positive affect.
After December, time flew by with only a few changes until this current point in time. We added a few new subscriptions based on user demand, along with various changes to how subscriptions were handled. We also added a few new sections to the forums to help appeal to other interests that they may have, and branch out from purely development.
So now I sit here, with one year down and thinking about the future. I hope that you all stick along for the ride, because we are not going anywhere but forward.
Your Story
Share your story with us!
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Special Thanks
I'd like to say thanks to all of the staff that have helped out this past year! You guys truly are warriors.
