Things have been progressing smoothly with our bandwidth upgrade, and it looks very likely that by this weekend, Newgrounds will have DOUBLE THE BANDWIDTH! If not this weekend, then early next week.

We aren't really sure what the results will be... We are sure the site will soon max out again, but the question is - will the site gain more users, or will the same users just be downloading more, faster?

We are planning to add more hardware in the near future, and if the improved performance results in enough additional revenue, we intend to continue expanding the bandwidth. NG traffic is ranked in the top 1000 on the web, but my current goal is to get back in the top 500, where we were a few years ago (the web has grown a lot since then, along with a lot of traffic generating gimmicks and ad companies who have clogged up the top rankings).

In other news... We've been very pleased to see a good number of users making use of the Audio Portal. I want to keep reminding Flash authors and musicians to check out this great resource. A lot of musicians have been delighted to see their music appear in various games and movies, and it has made the process much easier for Flash authors who want to use royalty-free music.

If you know a musician who makes good music, be sure to tell him/her about the Audio Portal! Additionally, you could spread the word to musicians you find on sites like mp3.com - let them know you like their work, and that it would be great if they submitted it to NG. The more original music we have, the more useful and attractive the Audio Portal becomes. It's a win-win for musicians and Flash authors alike.

There has been some recent concern about voting in the Audio Portal. We've decided to try a system that we have always felt would be too strict for the Flash Portal - users can now only vote once per Audio Portal submission, and they must be logged in as a registered user. This means you can't continually vote down a submission as an anonymous user, as users often do in the Flash Portal. The problem was more visible in the Audio Portal, and since it is meant more as a resource than "general entertainment", we decided stricter voting standards would be acceptable. We hope this will help encourage musicians, rather than scare them away. Some QUALITY musicians have already been discouraged by the low scores, and have stopped submitting as a result. Shame on the users who cause this sort of thing to happen! We hope those musicians will come back under this new system.

This ended up being longer than I planned... Enjoy the site everyone! :)

Sweet no more ten mintue waits for the portal to load Good Shit Tom.

kick ass tom

THANK YOU TOM!! Man that shit was starting to get to me. Thank you again. By the way, 20$ he wont answer this but give us a estamite time date of when pico 2 should be out.

i'll miss it i''m a way in the weekends :( o well it's only the becoming faster i'll miss not the being faster =D

Great fun for dial-up!

Sweet....that means the front page can hold more flashes that run long, such as "links quest for ass 2" or "ASSWARP". This is so kewl.......i wish i had a fucken flashkit.

thats great! i dont have to wait minutes for shit to download! no it should be seconds! cant wait Tom u are the shit dude.

Please Tom, please remove GANGURO GIRL from the front page ,its been there forever and it gets old! They arent paying you to leave it up there ARE THEY`?? Make room for new submissions! Theres plenty good content lately!

Tom your such a pimp.

Finelly!!

Faster is better! Well, not always.

At 4/22/03 12:16 PM, ecstasy122 wrote: Please Tom, please remove GANGURO GIRL from the front page ,its been there forever and it gets old! They arent paying you to leave it up there ARE THEY`?? Make room for new submissions! Theres plenty good content lately!

it's there to draw other kind of people to ng (40 year old sick fat guy's)

Say word thats great news.........

Thats good news Tom, I'm glad that all of your posts are good news,I'll get my cousin to sign up soon.

I don't pay attention to the scores of the audio portal entries when selecting them for my flash movies anyway.

That's cool. I would think that the site would get more users. it should run fast as hell even during mid-day when the most people are on. I am sure the word will get ot and lot's more users will come here and Ng will be bigger and better. I am still saying that you should make those better accounts that people have to pay for. Many people will give you money if it means no pop up's and something like 15 post per topic instead of just 4.

thank you, we've all been waiting for this extra bandwidth....I love you man

At 4/22/03 12:28 PM, Bobby_Jenkins wrote: I don't pay attention to the scores of the audio portal entries when selecting them for my flash movies anyway.

Sorry, I meant to add on that. I don't pay attention to the scores BECAUSE if you take a look at the top of the pops charts(music charts here in the UK) Mr Blobby, Bob the Builder, the Spice girls and that shit have had number ones. Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, Weezer and other such bands that I like have never had a number one, it just seems to be that it don't really matter all that much.

w00t! Double bandwidth! Does that mean we can start spamming now?

Very good job well done keep up the good work

Great stuff! Does that mean you'll maybe allow people to submit movies above 5mb? Some frame-by-frame pieces can get pretty big ( like Ortiz's stuff, short, huge and sweet).
And that's really good news for the audio portal! I, myslef, not really a big music listerner, will still take all my audio from there whenever I do a Flash, so it's good to know that the ones with the higher scores will be the best ones.
Well, are you planning on getting media coverage any time soon after you get more bandwith? I'm sure Jay Leno would be happy to have you on his show! He's be a great use for NG communitie!

Oh, and one small thing that's been bothering a lot of people: Newbies asking the same Q's over and over again on the BBS, well, is it possible to send a FAQ to them when they sign-up? We know they won't read it, but at least the next time we flame one, it will be for a good reason!

Eh, ben, tout est "tigidou" :)

Awesome news, hope things go smoothly. Guess I'll wander over to the audio portal every day now too.

Great News Tom,

But I've not really been having any trouble as a dial up anyway

great Tom, I hate the waiting

SWEET Tom and Wade thank you guys so much for working your asses off making NG the best site ever.

At 4/22/03 01:45 PM, Dark__Knight wrote: Great News Tom,

But I've not really been having any trouble as a dial up anyway

i bet your never on line when the poeple that live in america is awake =P

i needed the sfx in the AP but you took em away. :(

Wow... it's beautiful to see Newgrounds growing bigger and better! :'-)

Tom... I doubt that you'll respond to this, but how many unique user hits gets NG a day?!? It's something I always wanted to know.

At 4/22/03 03:27 PM, HeRetiK wrote: Tom... I doubt that you'll respond to this, but how many unique user hits gets NG a day?!? It's something I always wanted to know.

We don't run proper web logs because they use up server resources, but we do track Portal views... Every day, we serve out in the range of 1 million Flash submissions from the Portal.

Media Metrix also listed us as having around 6 million unique visitors in December.

-Tom