By jasonc_wtbr

Want to see what WTB?R used to look like? Click here!

Today, March 18th, 2002, marks The Who's the Boss? Resource's (WTB?R) second anniversary. I would like to thank all of WTB?R's visitors, new and old, for your support to the site. Without you, many of the things here wouldn't be possible.

It's been a great two years and I hope there will be many more anniversaries to celebrate at WTB?R. This year, to celebrate WTB?R's entering its third year in existence, I would like to take a special in-depth look at "The Many Faces of WTB?R".

During the past two years, WTB?R has undergone many changes, both in appearance and in content to become what it is today. The pictures included with this article (see the link at the top of the page) showcase the many design changes the site and forums have undergone.

Before I created WTB?R, I owned and operated a "Harvest Moon 64" fan site (Harvest Moon is a video game series. See Harvest Moon Farm for more information), titled "Jason's Harvest Moon Page", which was located at http://members.nbci.com/jmcale. After my updates to that site became less and less frequent, I decided that a Harvest Moon fan site wasn't what I wanted to focus my attention on, as there were far too many fan sites dedicated to that already.

About the same time that I stopped updating my Harvest Moon page, I started occasionally watching Who's the Boss? on Fox Family Channel (now ABC Family Channel). Soon thereafter, I became hooked and decided to see if there were any good fan sites on the Internet. I found a few small pages here and there, namely the Starville episode guide and megafan.net. At the time, megafan was the largest WTB? fan page out there and it had a great message board.

Over the next month or two, I became familiar with the regulars there, most of whom visit WTB?R regularly now. I also noticed that the site owner of megafan wasn't updating his site and that some of the information there was incorrect. With that in mind, I decided to create a new Who's the Boss? fan page. However, I was ill prepared.

When I decided to create WTB?R, I hadn't a clue how I was going to design it, what I was going to put in it or what I'd even name it. I realized that it needed to have a name that would be simple, yet descriptive. A few of the names that came across my mind were "Who's the Boss? Online" and "Jason's Who's the Boss? Page". Then, "Who's the Boss? Resource" came to mind. That name fit the bill, so I used that for the title. From there, I started work on the main layout of the page which, I had decided, would be black with white text. I filled the page with all the information I had available at the time, including an episode guide, borrowed from another site, and some information about the show.

On a quiet day in March of 2000, a new web page was born, The Who's the Boss? Resource. The night before, I had written a letter of apology to the few visitors of my Harvest Moon page, and posted it on my new site. I uploaded my site to NBCi's server and so started WTB?R. The only problem was that I had no visitors to the site and was unsure how to introduce people to my Web page.

Looking at megafan.net, I decided that the best way to get the word out about my new Web site was to announce it on the megafan forums. Shortly thereafter, a few visitors started trickling in. They liked the site and spread the word about it. Word of mouth really helped to bring in many of WTB?R's regulars.

Now that people had started to come to my Web site, I turned my attention to adding more content. I added some new sections, such as a virtual tour of the Bower House, a cast and crew guide and, most importantly, message forums, so that people could discuss the show. After searching for a few days, I found a nice board provider, CoolBoard (now defunct) and signed up for an account.

Still, the site was severely lacking in content, which is where all of you came to the rescue. You submitted numerous items for the site, including an exclusive fan-written episode guide (by SwampDweller) and hundreds of pictures. Suggestions have really helped me out, as well. Without all of your great suggestions, the Fan Fiction/Art/Poetry sections wouldn't be here, as well as the chat room, cast biographies, pictures and many other parts of the site.

Slowly, as I learned how to promote the site on search engines, the site started to increase in popularity. When WTB?R was finally accepted to the Yahoo! search engine in November of 2000 (shortly after I registered a new domain name, http://www.wtbr.com, for the site) I was very excited. Little did I know that, less than a year later, Yahoo! would also award the site with its prestigious Pick of the Week and Pick of the Year awards, bringing in even more of the site's regulars.

Things have drastically changed at WTB?R over the past two years, but one thing that has remained the same; my commitment to maintaining this site. I will continue to update the site and participate on the forums, making WTB?R a safe and fun place for everybody to visit.

In conclusion, The Who's the Boss? Resource will be here for a long time to come, but it wouldn't be here without all of you. I would like to give a big thanks to everybody who has helped make WTB?R what it is today, especially ReJoys2, TaxiFan, Swampdweller, and Smish. I look forward to seeing all of you here for WTB?R's next anniversary and for all the anniversaries to come.