SOOMPI TURNS 8!

If you recognize this, then you’ve been around here for a long time! This was the original logo of (then) SOOMPI TOWN, when it hit the ‘net on March 27, 1998. I was a total web amateur in every way (what, the logo doesn’t look professional? ^^;), and got my start on good ol’ Geocities! Look how far we’ve come! (^_^)v

In the past 8 years, there’s been a lot of ups & downs. For the past 4 years or so, we’ve been constantly battling all sorts of server issues due to the ever-growing population & usage on SOOMPI forums. Growth is great, but it’s not easy to keep up with the demand! We had a peak membership of over 80,000 before the "Great Crash of ’05" which happened in October of last year. At that time, the unimaginable happened, and we lost all of our databases, including member info, forum posts, and the main site data (which hadn’t been updated in almost 3 years :P). So there I was at a crossroad — I’d talked about shutting down SOOMPI for years (amongst my friends), and it seemed as good a time as ever. Of course many people would be heart-broken, and even angry, but hey, I’d been financially supporting this thing for years without any real sense of return, having already been several years removed from the everyday operations of SOOMPI, and my heart having left "k-pop" even before that.

But it just didn’t feel right, to bow out like that, based on the situation. And so it came back to life, and within 4 days, we already had over 20,000 members! At that time, I made a decision to really invest some time and spirit into SOOMPI, and with some unexpected staffing changes at the beginning of the year, my determination was fired up all the more!

So where are we now?
– We are aggressively rebuilding a SOOMPI mainsite (check out all the news, music features, and drama reviews!), while recruiting the right people to help take SOOMPI to the next level.
– Within the next few months, we hope to upgrade our server, to support the ever-growing needs of our community (still the most active Korean pop culture forum in English on the planet!).
– We’re working with our partner YesAsia.com to bring you many exclusive offers and drawings for free music & DVD’s.
– We’re working with concert promoters to have more concert ticket give-aways.

Whoa, this turned into a sort of a "State of the Union" type of address… ^^

Thank you everyone, old and new, who have made SOOMPI what it is today!

<3 soomp