User:MichaelQSchmidt/workspace/411mania

411mania was founded by Ashish Pabari in 1996 and has become one of the largest independently owned media sites on the internet.

Background

History

411mania started as a Geocities website in August of 1996. The original site was comprised of a single column by Pabari. He spent hours in chatrooms promoting his site, and 411 grew from a little site lost in a rapidly growing internet to a site that began to reach at first hundreds.

At the start of 1998, 411mania began moving from Geocities to other web hosts and eventually to its own domain of 411mania.com.

In 2001, when the dotcom bubble burst, 411 began losing money and founder Pabari paid money out of his pocket to keep the site alive.

Growth

411 was able to continue expanding, and soon offered viewers new sections and dozens of new writers. Administrator Jonathan Widro was promoted to managing partner in 2003 and remained in that capacity until 2004. On March 3, 2003, 411 launched a new design. After the launching, 411 began to grow at a rapid pace, and began being mentioned on such channels as MTV, ESPN, and VH1. It also became normal to see 411mania signs being held up during TV broadcasts that aired on channels such as the USA Network and SpikeTV, and for the site to be mentioned in publications such as ESPN The Magazine, Yahoo! WebBound, Houston Chronicle, and Maxim magazine. Each year subsequent to 2003, the site began recording greater web traffic.

Pabari remains at the helm, over a decade after founding 411, with the site continuing to set traffic records on a nearly monthly basis.