GateWorld Turns 9!

Today GateWorld celebrates its ninth birthday! It’s hard to believe that it has been nine years since GateWorld first went online on October 22, 1999, following Showtime’s premiere of the Stargate SG-1 episode “Jolinar’s Memories.” It has been a terrific ride, and we are excited to head into our tenth year of bringing you Stargate news, interviews, discussion, analysis, spoilers, and more.

In addition to those goodies and our continuing coverage of Stargate Atlantis‘s fourth and fifth seasons, this past year has seen a few major additions to the site. In January we premiered GateWorld Play, a streaming video channel that has seen a new video feature almost every single day. There are already more than 300 videos to watch!

In July we launched the Stargate Image Gallery, at StargateGallery.com. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of a crack team of screen-cappers, the gallery launched with 200,000 high-quality photos and DVD screen captures covering every episode and movie in Stargate history.

In just three short months the gallery has grown to nearly 220,000 images which have been viewed almost 5 million times.

Last but not least, GateWorld’s editors Darren and David jumped into the world of talk radio with the July 15 debut of the GateWorld Podcast. This weekly audio program offers a recap of news headlines and new site additions, plus a discussion of the new episode, listener mail, and more. That project has been a fun (and very demanding) new addition to the site.

Other highlights from GateWorld’s ninth year include member number 36,000 and the 5 millionth post at GateWorld Forum, the new Stargate Universe Launch Center, and our very first interviews with such actors as Gary Jones and Corin Nemec. We had another fantastic trip to the set of Atlantis and to Creation’s official Vancouver convention back in April, which bore fruit in those news stories and interviews you saw all spring and summer long.

Thanks go out to the producers, cast, and crew of Stargate for their support of GateWorld, and especially to YOU the reader! Unlike most of the content-rich sites you may visit, GateWorld doesn’t have a corporate machine behind it — just a couple of guys, a team of amazing volunteers, and a whole lot of Stargate love. We’re proud of our independent status, but we couldn’t keep it up if our readers weren’t still visiting, posting, e-mailing, creating, and contributing every single day. You’ve made GateWorld “your complete guide to Stargate.”

What’s up for Year 10? We have some exciting plans for what promises to be a very significant year in Stargate history, with the series finale of Atlantis in January and the premiere of Stargate Universe next summer (story). There will be some design changes to give GateWorld a slightly different feel as we get ready for the third TV series, and we’re coming up with new ideas for GateWorld Play’s daily videos. We also want to run more contests and give-aways this year, and we have a new section or two in the works.

We’ll have some tributes to Atlantis as the show winds down, and then ramp up our coverage of Universe, Stargate Worlds, and the next SG-1 and Atlantis movies in 2009.

It’s certainly been a good nine years. We never imagined when this little site launched in 1999 that so many people would like what we do, and that we would be given the opportunities that we have. From the bottom of our hearts: Thank you.

… Now, who has ideas for how to celebrate our tenth anniversary?

If you would like to read more about our site’s history and the people who make it possible, visit the Site History and Staff pages.

(Thanks to Stephenie and Morjana for the tip! Yep, we forgot our own birthday.)