True Joins the Web

Posted in Categories Firsts, Trivia, True Business4 Commentsby

Nearly a year old, This is True didn’t even have a web site until this week.

Screenshot of a simple webpage titled InfoArk WWW Server with a welcome message and a list of hyperlinks to various organizations, including This is True. The page has a plain white background and minimal styling.
The Internet Archive shows evidence of the first site: Infoark’s landing page. It did not, however, capture any of the This is True pages.

(Note: this page has been heavily updated since 1995!)

I didn’t even have a domain yet: a reader who already had a web site set up offered to host a couple of pages of info, and I readily agreed. Thanks, Joe!

The first domain was freecom.com — short for my company name, Freelance Communications, which still serves as an “imprint” of my publishing company. That was hosted by a NASA buddy for awhile. I sold the domain to a German company called …Freecom, which still uses it today. The Internet Archive’s first capture of the domain was after that transfer.

Traffic

The first (June 1995) web site had a surprising amount of traffic, especially considering it was 1995. Joe sent me the output of his log program for that month:

A table showing archive section transfers: most requests (62.90%) are for /freecom/, followed by /freecom/true-faq, /freecom/true-faq.html, /freecom/true-subs.html, and /freecom/truelogo.gif.
2800 hits on the landing page …in the first partial month. Astounding.

Finally, ThisIsTrue.com

Before changing the company name I first made sure I could get the thisistrue.com domain name when I was forced to come up with a new brand name.

Screenshot of a webpage titled This is True® by Randy Cassingham, offering free weekly email stories about strange-but-true news. The page includes magazine praise, story blurbs, copyright, and a link for more information.
The first capture of this site by the Internet Archive, in late 1997. I “had to” get this from the Archive since even I didn’t keep copies of all of the different “looks” of the site over time.

Each page was hand-coded until I switched to my first Content Management System, Moveable Type, I think in early 2008.

Nowadays, I can come up with a site idea and have it up and running the same day.

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Bad link? Broken image? Other problem on this page? Let Me Know, and thanks.

This page is an example of Randy Cassingham’s style of “Thought-Provoking Entertainment”. His This is True is an email newsletter that uses “weird news” as a vehicle to explore the human condition in an entertaining way. If that sounds good, click here to open a subscribe form.

To really support This is True, you’re invited to sign up for a subscription to the much-expanded Premium edition.

4 Comments on “True Joins the Web”

  1. Woohoo, history properly preserved!

    Better capture those Wayback Machine snapshots and compiled it here so readers can see how much True evolved.
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    Don’t need to: the Archive has them, and there is still evolution to come. -rc

    Reply

  2. Huh. The 11/3/1997 issue along with the current (7/22/2024) both contain “Pastors Behaving Badly”.

    The statisticians want to know who shows up more in True: Pastors or Florida Man?
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    I had to zoom the graphic to see which story you were referring to! An early favorite. But to answer your question: Florida Man, by far. -rc

    Reply

  3. Oh My Goodness I remember that first site.
    —
    Heh! It’s fun that there are many readers who have been along for almost all of the ride. -rc

    Reply

  4. Wow, I remember the early look! I wonder just when I started, maybe I’m in the archives too, from Korea, Virginia and several locations in Arkansas.

    Reply

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