-Foreward-

I was surprised at the day my brother called me over to tell me American Gladiators was back on the air. It really caught me off-guard, considering my last viewing of the great American TV show was roughly five years prior. Knowing this, I decided to put in a few tapes--and tape to my heart's consent (or at least until Spike TV stopped running weekday episodes). With the knowledge that I now had a reference to AG 24/7 (the tapes), I decided to create a website for American Gladiators. "I would be the sole place for AG knowledge" (I thought), but those dreams were quickly dashed as I went online and found DW (from The Coliseum) had already made a website. Nevertheless, I knew that this website would be my prized possession, better than any thing else I had made.

This piece of history was originally written at the one year anniversary of the AG Domain. Some of the information may be dated, so please take any and all writings with a grain of salt. Enjoy... Well, it is now officially one year online and my website has been, and will continue to be everything I expected. Since I have been through so much since the creation of the site, I decided that I would type a biography of the American Gladiators Domain.

What's in a name?

What is really is in a name? After deciding in August 2002 that I would make a website dedicated to American Gladiators, the first thing I had to come up with was a name for the website. I spent days on the subject, trying to figure out the perfect name that would crystalize what the website was trying to say... in only a few words. Paul Noddings owned the Gladiators Zone (one of my few ideas), and so I spent an entire day brainstorming ideas and words from the dictionary. Through this process, I managed to eliminate names, one-by-one, until there were five names left. Then, after much deliberation, the Gladiators Domain was finally named.

Some rejected names: GladiatorsOnline, AGNet, The Eliminator Online, The Unofficial AG Website, and Ultimate AG.

The name has stayed, although it has gone through some minor changes (American Gladiators Domain, then Gladiators Domain, then back to AG Domain) I am very "glad" that we chose this name.

The Beginning

The early days were full of confusion and lots of speculation. I started the site with only knowledge of Season Two and parts of Season Three. Since then, I've become a self-proclaimed "AG expert", but the website's humble beginnings were not soon to be forgotten. The site, which started as a few pages, was about 25% complete. Now, the website is quickly becoming more and more accurate with information, and gaining more details with each update.

After getting a name figured out, I then had to find a host. I knew that there were three main hosts on the web-- Yahoo! Geocities, Angelfire, and Tripod. I carefully balanced all three hosts trying to narrow down the choices. I once said this about the process-

"I knew that I had a shaky history with Angelfire and despite there superiority with resources, they were out of the picture. Next, I studied Tripod. They didn't really have too much to offer and since I had not yet tried them before for a website, I didn't want to take the chance. That meant that Geocities was left. Even though Geocities was the last legimate free web hosting service left, I still might not have picked it... but due to previous success with the service and above average web management tools, I decided the The Gladiators Domain would be hosted by Geocities."

I officially launched the website on August 11, 2002. During the first few days there were just two main pages, the events and gladiator pages. Most of the gladiators were there, but a few events (Tug-o-War, Snapback, Whiplash, Pyramid, Sky Track, and Gauntlet) were missing. I added The Gladiators Domain Forum and 5 five new pages just a day later. Since then, the site has never looked back.

Just pick one already

I never really could get a decent forum going. I went through three forums in a quick five months from opening the site. After almost two months of a Yahoo Message Board I decided to make a switch. I ventured the internet super-highway in search of a reliable message board that could be fully customizable. After following a series of links from the Gladiators Zone, I found HyperBoards (a relative to ProBoards). It offer very strong server capabilities, lots of webmaster options, and much more. This was an obvious choice for the website, so I set the forum up and simply enough, my second forum was born. Unfortunately, after about two weeks of service I knew that this message board was a dud. During the two weeks I had a total of one member besides myself, so that idea was gone and I was back to the drawing board.

My next target was Alxnet. I had previously made a poll using their service for another website and was ready to go back again. While trying to keep the title of a non-profit website (and doing that by not spending a dollar) I took advantage of all of Alxnet's free services. One of the reasons I chose Alxnet is because of the guest posting which I found was the main reason people liked a board--no commitment. After about three weeks and only one post at Alxnet, I was ready to come crawling back to Yahoo! Groups. I ended up changing the name before re-launching the forum from americangladiator to agdomain, to better fit my site. The Yahoo! board was and still is the most successful of the three, but is still not a constantly flowing forum despite its 50+ members. The thought of a dead forum is devastating to a webmaster, which is what led me to going through forums faster than the season four gladiators.

An Idiotic Move...

I like to brag. It's a personality trait of mine, both a blessing and a curse. I like to brag about things, including this website, and August 16, 2002 was no different. As I was just getting the Gladiators Domain afoot, I posted a message on the americangladiators Yahoo! Club. I advertised the site, but right before my signature at the bottom, I wrote- "Hey, we're better than www.americangladiators.cjb.net" Well, this was not responded to very kindly, resulting in a mini website war for about a day or two. After looking back at the messages, e-mails, etc., the act was probably stupid in its own right, but also legitimized my website as a contender.

Making Strides

The AG Domain was starting to make strides as an American Gladiators website, just months into its existence. Information was starting to become more complete, more pictures were being added, and even I was learning more and more by the second. The site celebrated with a large update at midnight on January 1, 2003, including an American Gladiators internet first- an interview. This interview was with a large player in the AG community, Raye "Zap" Hollitt. The "big news" of the interview jolted the AG Domain's hit count, and further solidified the website's status as a contender with americangladiators.cjb.net. Speaking of which, nobody could've ever predicted what would happen next...

Let the Games Begin!!!

On January 16, 2003, I recieved a couple of official e-mails from a few representatives of American Gladiators. One of the officials was AG creator Johnny Ferraro (the other was Gladnet Vice President, Scott Tarnell). John stated that he owned the trademark--and if I was using AG for personal gains, I could have been in big trouble legally. He also wrote that I had done a nice job (thanks John!). My first reaction to this was shock. I also recieved an email from the Scott moments earlier. He wrote much of the same material as Johnny's email did, but seemed a little more business-like, with only the idea of trademark infringement in mind. Little did I know that these e-mails would provoke a long string of events I had no control over. The only thing I could do was stick along for the ride...

I later discovered that he had also found the other American Gladiators websites, and was threatening legal action if they did not comply with him. Sure enough, they did not comply (surprise, surprise) and their websites were shut down. I thought this was horrible due to the fact that I would lose my competition, but I did not know that this move would cause even more trouble for myself and my website. I frequently went to the American Gladiators message boards of Yahoo and Yesterdayland-- but on this day I'd found that everyone had turned on me, saying that I was the one shutting down the websites! There were the few that stayed with me, (and I personally and truthfully thank them very much for that) but most of the show's fans jumped ship. Propaganda can be a disasterous thing. Below is an image of one of the posts at Yesterdayland.

Unfortunately, that was just the tip of the iceberg, as one by one I heard people starting to boycott the AG Domain. Through all of this I never said a single word. I never responded to any of the slandering posts, and just let it all go by the wayside. I managed to set everything straight--and in the end Mr. Ferraro praised me by saying that I, 'Stepped up to the plate like a man and settled everything'.

Sure, I felt betrayed that a bunch of people thought that it was me shutting down the websites, but I had to concentrate with the task at hand, making sure *my* website did not get shut down itself. Unlike everyone else, I was one of the few that knew John was the real deal, not an impostor. He had sent me tons of documents verifying himself, while the other webmasters and different people just brushed him off as a fake. The things that happened really got me hot tempered, but I learned not to get involved as it would only make things worse. Everything eventually got sorted out and my critics had to eat their words, while I just sat there, watching with a gigantic smile on my face. Afterword, I was asked why I didn't respond to anyone, and all I could say was that I thought not speaking was right. I guess it turned out I was right (in the end). It also goes to show that one little spark can ignite a flame that sends a whole message board into chaos, leading to an online community's removal (Yesterdayland).

Brighter Skies Ahead

Amidst all of the previous, some good did come out of it. The AG representatives had decided to allow me to come under the wing of the americangladiators.com name, and have my website a link on the americangladiators.com homepage. Later this idea was changed to have my website's link on one of americangladiators.org's subsidary pages.

Then, an idea materialized to put all of the AG websites under one roof, so the AG Fan Portal at americangladiators.org was created, and I was honored to become the first member. During the first few months, I'd been struggling to get my website into the balanced equilibrium for which I had at Geocities. Every time I had new content I would have to wait for ages to have it put on the site, making it a constant "do and wait" strategy.

In May of 2003, I was in the process of putting Version 3.1 of the website together when I received an e-mail from Maria Platonova. Maria was the former co-webmaster of the greatest (and first) American Gladiators fan website back in 1997. After talking with Maria, I offered her a job as the head contributor and a co-editor. For a solid two year period in the AG Domain's "glory days", Maria was arguably the best thing ever to happen to the website. Thanks to her, the AG Domain increased its media content by ten-fold, again making the website the best online.

Now and Beyond (dated material)

Recently I unveiled AG Domain Version 3.2 to the American Gladiators online community. I am very pleased now as I have fixed and tinkered with a few things, and I feel like this is my best work yet. The website just recently surpassed 500,000 hits, a major milestone for the website. As I look into the future all I can see is great things ahead, a true testament of the AG Domain.

-Jay Schmidt, AG Domain Head Webmaster

PART II

Foreward

American Gladiators. Those two words created an instant pop culture phenomenon, which still lasts to this day, more than 15 years later. This phenomenon caused people from around the world to watch AG, and it thusly created a large fanbase. Needless to say, 3 1/2 years ago (now nearly five years ago) I created the Gladiators Domain (now the AG Domain) to the acclaim of AG fans around the world.

Now, over three years later, both the website and it's webmasters are probably a little bit older and wiser (I'm sure) and as a tribute to the past couple of years in gladiator-ism, we present Contenders Ready? The Story of the AG Domain, Part II.

Where We Left Off...

Well, our biography last left off in August '03, roughly around the time when I had released AG Domain version 3.2, a primitive and ancient beast compared to where the website is now. We had recently went through the entire fiasco where most people on the message boards, led by another webmaster, proceeded to blame me for shutting down the other Gladiator websites. Later, it was found that I was 'innocent,' and it was their own shortcomings that were responsible for their websites getting shut down. Anyways, shortly afterward the AG fan community was set abuzz by the online appearance of AG creator John C. Ferraro, all of the websites were placed on the new ag.org servers. Both the AG Domain and The Coliseum were even joined by a new website, run by Elektralover, dedicated to 'AG Fan Creations'.

Although the transition for the AG Domain got off to a rocky start, things have been smooth sailing ever since. Shortly after, the AG Domain was blessed to reach 500,000 hits, halfway to that inevitable milestone of one million. Later, the AG Domain evolved again, making it easier to find the site. Our pages would now be under the www.agdomain.net banner. We now continue the story of the AG Domain...

Catching Up

In the time since the AG Domain has been online, the website has garnered nearly four million hits. That magnificent number is thanks to some great designs for the website and some excellent content. Since then, we've moved to our current "darker" color scheme, and with the AG renaissance on ESPN Classic-- we haven't looked back.

-Jay Schmidt, AG Domain Head Webmaster