jchambers
Banned
- 5,282
- 2,025
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2008
Just came across this and thought it had some interesting info. Talks about the founding of NT, prominent members, etc.
http://nt.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
"Nelson C
Co-founder of NikeTalk.
A post made by Nelson C on 10/10/02 in the thread "Who started niketalk?" Found in the NikeTalk archives forum.
I am.
To answer slickrick81's question:
I got the idea to start NT cause the NikePark MB was a too much of a mess and it was annoying to have to weed thru the trash talk and crap just to get to one nugget of good info/discussion. Admittedly it was also a bit out of selfishness, I wanted a quiet place to get release dates and info without childish non-sense, note this was right after the Retro 4s were out that summer and getting info for that was hard for me being in Canada.
With all that in mind I came across an ezboard MB from a Transformer's link while doing early X-Mas shopping on the net , these TF heads had their MB with like 1,500 members and I thought if that many people joined up it must be a successful system and it should translate to shoes pretty well since I knew there were alot of shoe freaks out there.
It had it all, moderators, registering thru email no random posting allowed and I could enforce my rules, sweet. But I needed help, I knew it would grow quick and I couldn't be on all the time and in every post,so I initially asked Meth, Todd and Nikeville for help and they accepted. NT had its doubters who said it had been tried b4, but I thought that with quality people behind it, it would be different, we'd be different. There were a few trial NT's getting colors right, I'm not a computer guy so I did what I could, I wanted it to remind me of Bulls colors, especially playoff Js, (7s 11s...) mostly black with red and white. Some people complained about that, but I liked it so it stayed...
Early on I kept track of the member’s who’d join up, I stopped at 337…..which we hit in like a month and a half I think.
As the board built up my goals were: to pass that TF site in membership (which we've done 19,000 to 3,600) , maybe get big enough to where Nike/JB would take our views seriously into consideration when releasing shoes and to hopefully have MJ see the board and know about us, I thought that would be awesome and still do.
When NT was ready to be opened I posted on NP a few times about NT's opening as well as on the sneaker-nation MB, then I sent out a "GRAND OPENING" type email to a bunch of sneaker heads, I had gathered their emails thru NP and I thought it'd be a good way to get things rolling.
Within days we had like 200+ members and it just kept growing and growing and growing and growing, it grew exponentially with no advertising and the hits just kept on coming. People just linked up to us on their site which helped alot, getting mentioned in KICKS boosted membership too but that wasn't THE reason NT exploded, it was already headed that way IMO. When I heard that NT was being mentioned in Niketown staff meetings I flipped, them mentioning us?? Meth also noticed we had a potential JB employee on board who dropped info on what Derek Jeter would be wearing that night in a playoff game and low and behold he was, whoa this guy was legit, so was his IP. Suz1 from Finishline also dropped info, not to mention EKIN, all this added credibility to NT as the place on the net for shoe fiends..
Since then we’ve been mentioned in a few Mags, in newspaper/Internet articles and stuff and that’s been amazing, Nike and JB have acknowledged our existence which is so cool, a company I’d always loved and admired their products knew about us?? Nice. What wasn't as nice was getting those cease and desist letters but hey I do have 2 official letters from Nike, Inc.
I believe we've made a difference in the shoe game, we've brought people together who otherwise wouldn't know each other and we got the BLK/RED 11s, nice indeed......
I’m still waiting on communication from the Man himself, maybe someday..."
http://nt.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
"Nelson C
Co-founder of NikeTalk.
A post made by Nelson C on 10/10/02 in the thread "Who started niketalk?" Found in the NikeTalk archives forum.
I am.
To answer slickrick81's question:
I got the idea to start NT cause the NikePark MB was a too much of a mess and it was annoying to have to weed thru the trash talk and crap just to get to one nugget of good info/discussion. Admittedly it was also a bit out of selfishness, I wanted a quiet place to get release dates and info without childish non-sense, note this was right after the Retro 4s were out that summer and getting info for that was hard for me being in Canada.
With all that in mind I came across an ezboard MB from a Transformer's link while doing early X-Mas shopping on the net , these TF heads had their MB with like 1,500 members and I thought if that many people joined up it must be a successful system and it should translate to shoes pretty well since I knew there were alot of shoe freaks out there.
It had it all, moderators, registering thru email no random posting allowed and I could enforce my rules, sweet. But I needed help, I knew it would grow quick and I couldn't be on all the time and in every post,so I initially asked Meth, Todd and Nikeville for help and they accepted. NT had its doubters who said it had been tried b4, but I thought that with quality people behind it, it would be different, we'd be different. There were a few trial NT's getting colors right, I'm not a computer guy so I did what I could, I wanted it to remind me of Bulls colors, especially playoff Js, (7s 11s...) mostly black with red and white. Some people complained about that, but I liked it so it stayed...
Early on I kept track of the member’s who’d join up, I stopped at 337…..which we hit in like a month and a half I think.
As the board built up my goals were: to pass that TF site in membership (which we've done 19,000 to 3,600) , maybe get big enough to where Nike/JB would take our views seriously into consideration when releasing shoes and to hopefully have MJ see the board and know about us, I thought that would be awesome and still do.
When NT was ready to be opened I posted on NP a few times about NT's opening as well as on the sneaker-nation MB, then I sent out a "GRAND OPENING" type email to a bunch of sneaker heads, I had gathered their emails thru NP and I thought it'd be a good way to get things rolling.
Within days we had like 200+ members and it just kept growing and growing and growing and growing, it grew exponentially with no advertising and the hits just kept on coming. People just linked up to us on their site which helped alot, getting mentioned in KICKS boosted membership too but that wasn't THE reason NT exploded, it was already headed that way IMO. When I heard that NT was being mentioned in Niketown staff meetings I flipped, them mentioning us?? Meth also noticed we had a potential JB employee on board who dropped info on what Derek Jeter would be wearing that night in a playoff game and low and behold he was, whoa this guy was legit, so was his IP. Suz1 from Finishline also dropped info, not to mention EKIN, all this added credibility to NT as the place on the net for shoe fiends..
Since then we’ve been mentioned in a few Mags, in newspaper/Internet articles and stuff and that’s been amazing, Nike and JB have acknowledged our existence which is so cool, a company I’d always loved and admired their products knew about us?? Nice. What wasn't as nice was getting those cease and desist letters but hey I do have 2 official letters from Nike, Inc.
I believe we've made a difference in the shoe game, we've brought people together who otherwise wouldn't know each other and we got the BLK/RED 11s, nice indeed......
I’m still waiting on communication from the Man himself, maybe someday..."
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