Webmasters know their websites live or die depending upon how much traffic they get. That's why they obsess over where they "rank" in the major search engines ... and why in late 1996 we were hearing horror stories of webmasters being charged thousands of dollars by firms to generate "search engine positioning" reports. It's not brain surgery, it's just time consuming and monotonous -- the exact kinds of tasks that intelligent agents excel at. We were confident that we could offer this service for free through an advertiser-supported model (much as the search engines themselves do) by automating it with a live "spider" that interfaced back to the search engines themselves. We launched Rank This! in early 1997 to huge traffic spikes, rave reviews and numerous awards.

Early after the launch of Rank This!, we formed an alliance with online promotion uber-firm WebPromote in an effort to outreach to webmasters about our free online tool. The relationship was incredibly successful--thousands of webmasters utilized the site each day to analyze their successes (or failures) in being found in the search engines. In January 1998, WebPromote acquired Rank This! from GMD Studios in a six-figure deal. WebPromote later became YesMail.com, and was acquired by CMGI after it went public.

The Slant

The Slant was an Orlando-focused Internet publication that broke new ground in "community publishing" by combining the best features of "alternative press" editorial coverage, cyberspace community and searchable events database technology -- back in 1997 when "localized content on the Internet" wasn't a popular idea. By empowering the voices of the Central Florida community (blurring the line between "contributor" and "participant"), The Slant left behind what we saw as the less desirable elements of traditional media: pompous critics, disguised biases, hidden agendas, thinly-veiled editorial content, and unnecessarily formal writing. Launched in March of 1997, The Slant received considerable attention and acclaim from online and traditional media publishers, including the Orlando Press Club Award for Best Orlando Website of 1997.

While we still believe the publishing metaphor and approach of The Slant is a model for how democratized media can work on the Web, alas The Slant itself didn't survive. Once "big corporate media" decided that localized content was the "hot new thing," Orlando quickly became the battleground of titans, all of whom figured that Central Florida's mix of locals and tourists could make their models work easier here than anywhere. The Slant published its last article on July 23, 1998 and to this day no one has succeeded in making localized Web content profitable in Orlando.