> I began making sites in January of 1999 (wow, three years now) on a virtual game called Petz. I had learned on other Petz sites how to hex (modify files in the program to produce a custom Catz or Dogz breed) and I wanted to display my own breeds as I had seen others do (as well as show off my Petz, named after my own alias at the time).
>
> That grew over the next two years. Eventually I ended up with a lot more features than just breeds on my site (custom-hexed clothes, settings, etc., as well as a tutorial on HTML -- mostly stuff to be of service to other Petz users since I enjoyed creating and distributing such stuff). I also eventually registered a (now defunct) domain name and offered web-based email and subdomain redirects for whoever wanted them.
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> However, that community got old quickly (as well as hostile), so I ended up leaving and following a new trend: Personal sites.
>

Ria's story up there is basically my own, too. (Ria and I met in the Petz community, and a recent RinkChat visitor, shakeycat, is also an old-school member who I remember from LONG ago.) Although I think Ria got a bit worse hostility than I did... :/

Oh, and Ria, I actually beat you to making websites by a year! Weird. I thought it was the other way around. ;)

Sosi"memory lane"qui