NYTimes front page, etc.

[TomFulp]

Tired of hearing about Numa Numa Dance yet? Too bad... It was on the front page of the NY Times this Friday! Crazy, eh?

The good news about all this publicity is, it drives more eyeballs to everyone elses work as well. Yesterday was probably the highest traffic day in the history of Newgrounds! We had over 2.7 million Portal views and over 550,000 unique visitors (we usually have around 450,000 on a Saturday).

We have also continued to receive TONS of amazing submissions. It blows my mind... The submissions that win awards such as daily 5th place, had they been submitted a few years ago, would probably have been ranked some of the top content in the Portal. It's amazing how far everyone is coming with Flash. We'll need to make further front page adjustments to accomodate all the worthy submissions.

As the quality of submissions continues to rise, I don't want beginner Flash artists to lose hope. We definitely need to work to keep everyone involved in the community. I talked to some high school Flash classes this past week and found that while some of the students submit their work to Newgrounds, none of them have made it past the judgement phase. They all get blammed. The competition for placement on NG has definitely gotten tough over the years.

Not to say young artists can't compete - the creator of Proto and Sanitarium is only 16 years old, the same age I was when I started Newgrounds and I didn't have 1/10th his talent!

I finally followed through and updated the Flash Help section, to feature more user submitted tutorials. There is a lot of helpful information on this page that will hopefully make the difference between getting blammed and getting the front page for some people!

In other news... We are maxing out our 500mbps bandwidth connection. I am planning to take the plunge and up it to 600mbps this week. Hopefully some of these new visitors will stick around and become permanent fixtures of the Newgrounds community!

[DareDevilGuy]

At 2/27/05 12:29 PM, TomFulp wrote: As the quality of submissions continues to rise, I don't want beginner Flash artists to lose hope. We definitely need to work to keep everyone involved in the community. I talked to some high school Flash classes this past week and found that while some of the students submit their work to Newgrounds, none of them have made it past the judgement phase. They all get blammed. The competition for placement on NG has definitely gotten tough over the years.

Very true, people are getting used to higher wuality, and therefor demand that from a lot of submissions, although it'll most likely pass if it involves porn or hentai aswell...

[Elfer]

I agree, the competition in the portal has become pretty brutal for peopel just starting flash.

Especially what with all the people who like to discourage new artists because they aren't as good as the top movies on the portal.

[DarkArchon]

A 600mbps pipeline will be insane.

I really should brush up on tutorials, myself. ;)

[HAcoreRD]

How did that movie get such a media blitz?

[DarkArchon]

At 2/27/05 12:31 PM, iLLiCit_JmBd wrote: Why does this keep going on, I will never know.

What?

[pythagoras]

At 2/27/05 12:29 PM, TomFulp wrote: We'll need to make further front page adjustments to accomodate all the worthy submissions.

Do I smell a Daily top 10?

I talked to some high school Flash classes this past week and found that while some of the students submit their work to Newgrounds, none of them have made it past the judgement phase. They all get blammed.

Woah, they have flash classes in high schools now? You should have laffo'd at the students that got blammed. Then forced the teacher to fail them on the spot. And possibly castrate them. =D

[colourdeaf]

i cant believe you guys took off "Sally Cant Wait" from the front page, it was only there for 1 day ... its an amazing flash, instead Boobs Butt and Shoulder has been there for over a week or more! Keep the real quality flashes on the front page please!

[Potski]

Wow, the numa numa dance just keeps on going. I'm probably strange, but I think that the NND was actually an artistic masterpiece, although I doubt anyone had any idea it would go this far. Nice one Gary.

As for the portal, I agree. The -quality threshold- has risen so far, so fast, that flash newbies are left quite a way down the line. My pointless suggestion is to create newbgrounds.com, a place where the -quality threshold- is much lower and can be more open to new talent.

I hope that all the new visitors will stay around here, at least for a cup of tea....

[viruscorpslll7]

i agree

[TomFulp]

At 2/27/05 12:37 PM, colourdeaf wrote: i cant believe you guys took off "Sally Cant Wait" from the front page, it was only there for 1 day ... its an amazing flash, instead Boobs Butt and Shoulder has been there for over a week or more! Keep the real quality flashes on the front page please!

Yeah, I felt bad about all the movies I had to swap out. I suppose Boobs Butt or Shoulder's time has come, although like Numa Numa, it draws in a lot of new, outside traffic.

[wheezl]

Wow good for you tom!

This is really fantastic all the fresh meat pouring into NG.

But too bad for you...

If one of the New talents creates a web site like NG...

It's gonna be your downfall...

But Im always with ya Tom!!!

[Think-Tank15]

Wow, thank god for Numa.... This site is gonna get alot bigger in the next couple of weeks. Tom keep making good decisions like you have lately (Alien Hominid, Awards for submissions) and this site is gonna be HUGE by the end of the year....

Good Luck!

[TomFulp]

At 2/27/05 12:38 PM, Potski_ wrote: As for the portal, I agree. The -quality threshold- has risen so far, so fast, that flash newbies are left quite a way down the line. My pointless suggestion is to create newbgrounds.com, a place where the -quality threshold- is much lower and can be more open to new talent.

It appears someone has already registered Newbgrounds.com:

Navigation Catalyst Systems, Inc.
Sherman Oaks, California

I hate domain squatters.

[BAWLS]

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic.php?id=232557

FAIL

<3

[TomFulp]

At 2/27/05 12:41 PM, Salty_Warrior wrote: If one of the New talents creates a web site like NG...

It's gonna be your downfall...

But Im always with ya Tom!!!

Tons of people are already ripping off NG... As long as enough people remember where it all started, we'll be fine. :)

[joshuaost]

At 2/27/05 12:37 PM, colourdeaf wrote: i cant believe you guys took off "Sally Cant Wait" from the front page, it was only there for 1 day ... its an amazing flash, instead Boobs Butt and Shoulder has been there for over a week or more! Keep the real quality flashes on the front page please!

I'm sorry to say it but sex sells.

[Potski]

At 2/27/05 12:41 PM, Salty_Warrior wrote: Stuff

I doubt NG can 'fall' that fast. There's nothing wrong with some healthy competition, but still, it would take a long time for any site to get close to where we are.

I have to agree with tom. There is limited space on the front page, and there are loads of movies that deserve to be on there. It's the same problem with the portal. New talent needs to be displayed and judged fairly.

To build on the earlier NbG(Newbgrounds) concept. I didn't mean anything serious like a new site. Just maybe a secondary portal(like NG alphas) for 'new' movies to be submitted to and voted on, but with lower blamming points. Like .25 for 100, .40 for 150 and .80 for 200. That would cause problems again with shitty movies being submitted, and other quality movies being drowned by them, any ideas on how to fix that problem?

[BatDan]

Yay, NG gets even bigger and bigger. I wish though that Newgrounds was like the olden days in the late 90's because from what I heard those were its golden years.

[Gingerbread]

At 2/27/05 12:29 PM, TomFulp wrote:

Not to say young artists can't compete - the creator of Proto and Sanitarium is only 16 years old, the same age I was when I started Newgrounds and I didn't have 1/10th his talent!

yes but tom sweety you helped everyone be inspired by your success with ng everyone can find a way to do flash movies right?
and a place to put them on for free ....

i love this site
i wish i knew how to make movies i cant understand the html and stuff on the tutorials

[Xehirut]

At 2/27/05 12:49 PM, Danarachy wrote: Yay, NG gets even bigger and bigger. I wish though that Newgrounds was like the olden days in the late 90's because from what I heard those were its golden years.

Yeah, it was, I really truely miss those years. Oh well.

You know Numa Numa.. its become a phenominon like Tickle Me Elmos, only worse... MUCH worse. I was in my DoD game last night and some utter tool was singing it to the poing where we banned him off the server because he got so annoying.

Can this trend die... plesae.. for the love of Baby Jesus?

[TomFulp]

At 2/27/05 12:49 PM, Danarachy wrote: Yay, NG gets even bigger and bigger. I wish though that Newgrounds was like the olden days in the late 90's because from what I heard those were its golden years.

I dunno, I think Newgrounds is going through a bit of a renaissance. The late 90s definitely had a great vibe and energy, but the community was a lot smaller as well. It is hard to manage growth and keep things personal, but I'm trying. :)

For example... I probably respond to a greater number of fan mails now than I did in the late 90s. I have a new appreciation for them nowadays, so I do my best.

In the late 90s, we were PLAGUED with hosting problems. Nowadays (with the exception of this weekend), the site is running better than it has ever run. We have full control over our hosting, from the hardware to the bandwidth - something that was out of our control in the beginning.

Also, there is a CHANCE we could be pulling (or extremely limiting) the pop-up ads this year if things continue to go well. I don't even know if that is too necessary, considering more and more hardcore users run Firefox.

So overall, I think this is one of the most exciting years for Newgrounds. It IS harder to get noticed, but we have a lot more to offer as well. More and more NG contributors are going on to great things in their lives and I feel that our ability to maximize exposure plays a big part in that. So I think it is fair to say that in five years, users will be looking back on how great NG was in 2005. :)

[BatDan]

At 2/27/05 12:57 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 2/27/05 12:49 PM, Danarachy wrote: Yay, NG gets even bigger and bigger. I wish though that Newgrounds was like the olden days in the late 90's because from what I heard those were its golden years.

I dunno, I think Newgrounds is going through a bit of a renaissance. The late 90s definitely had a great vibe and energy, but the community was a lot smaller as well. It is hard to manage growth and keep things personal, but I'm trying. :)

By the way, what exact date did NG start in '96. I want to celebrate it's tenth birthday on the message boards.

[Darklilangel23]

Way to go Tom,
your living out your fantasies
you got a hugly successful website a popular videogame
and the site only gets better and better by the day

i hope u reward us long time users with bonus exp points or cusomizable avatars

[pythagoras]

At 2/27/05 12:40 PM, TomFulp wrote: Yeah, I felt bad about all the movies I had to swap out. I suppose Boobs Butt or Shoulder's time has come, although like Numa Numa, it draws in a lot of new, outside traffic.

I would have thought thay with Numa Numa drawing in so many new visitors, you'd be trying to promote more.. uhh.. friendly content. :)

People tire with boobs and ass, but art is timeless.

[kirbypwner]

Many users say that Numa Numa sucks. But without it, we'd have less traffic and other new NGers! It's great to see that Newgrounds is becoming more and more popular!

[JohnnyWang]

I'm pretty worried about the flood of new users...

More work to the mods and rewiev mods...

[authenticsimpson]

Yeah but with BB or S, unless if there is some reason that it has to be up there (like Numa Numa being in the news for example makes it a required front page flash) there should be a limit on how long something can be on the front page. According to the front page archive Boobs, Butt or Sholder has been on the front page since January 26. That's over a month and is too long for a flash to be on the front page.

[StarCleaver]

At 2/27/05 12:29 PM, TomFulp wrote: We have also continued to receive TONS of amazing submissions. It blows my mind... The submissions that win awards such as daily 5th place, had they been submitted a few years ago, would probably have been ranked some of the top content in the Portal. It's amazing how far everyone is coming with Flash. We'll need to make further front page adjustments to accomodate all the worthy submissions.

Tell me about it! The daily features are usually amazing movies or games, every single day, not just occasionally as it was a couple years ago. Its making me bust my ass on the new game I'm making, just to even have a chance at the daily 5.

[pythagoras]

At 2/27/05 12:57 PM, TomFulp wrote: Also, there is a CHANCE we could be pulling (or extremely limiting) the pop-up ads this year if things continue to go well. I don't even know if that is too necessary, considering more and more hardcore users run Firefox.

Newgrounds still has popups? :o