Portion of a salvaged logo

A salvaged logo or possible reproduction

WebChat Broadcasting System (or WBS for short) was a virtual community that existed during the 1990s. It was founded in 1990 in Menlo Park, California. Supported by online advertising, it was one of few services like it at the time to offer free integrated community services including chat, homesteading, messaging, and user profiles.

Audience

WBS offered an array of chat rooms categorized into "hubs." A large number of these rooms were dedicated to affinity groups based on age, race/ethnicity, religion, and sexuality. Others were specific to topics such as dating, entertainment, computers and the internet, travel, video games, roleplaying games, and the arts.

Known rooms

General hub

• Have a Friend
• Hallway
• Hot Tub
• Current Events/Politics
• WebTV
• The Pool

Age specific hub

• Preteen
• Teen 13-15
• Teen 16-19
• Teen Terrace
• Twentysomething
• Thirtysomething
• Fortysomething
• Fifty Plus

International and ethnic hub

• Habla Espanol?
• African-American
• British
• Mexican
• Native American
• Filipino
• Italian

Support and lifestyles hub

• Atheist
• Big People
• Christian
• College Chat
• Comics 'n Stuff
• Cowboy Talk
• Girl Talk
• Gothic Cathedral
• Guy Talk
• Psych Central
• Sex Talk
• Book Talk
• Edgewise Cafe (a poetry chatroom)
• Pagan - Wicca Chat
• Spirituality
• Alternative Music

Roleplaying and special interest hub

• Anime
• alt.tv.simpsons (The Simpsons)
• Glenshadow's Tavern ^[1] hosted by Chris Schiebel and Sharon Yeates (later renamed to Nia's Tavern)
• Nia's Tavern ^[2] hosted by David Garcia and Sharon Yeates ^[3]
• Inn of the Weary Traveller ^[4]
• Battledome
• World of Darkness
• Sailor (Moon) Soldiers
• Star Trek AKA The Nexus Bar
• NinRPG AKA The Truce Inn
• The Star Wars Cantina
• Roland's Cavern ^[5]
• Highlander
• Rec. Music Classical
• Big Bands
• Alt. Music
• Punkers Palace
• Trivia
• The Realm of Elahrair
• The Dark Citadel
• DOOM Freaks
• Dragonhold
• Dragondale City (DDC)
• Silvermoon Forest
• Valley of the Lunar Rainbow ^[6]
• X-Philers
• Nails Ginjoint
• NetLinkORama
• Nintendo Fans
• WolfSamurai Castle
• X Mansion

Growth

In February 1997, WBS reached a milestone of 1 million registered users, accruing 4,000 new registered users and 5.5 million page views every day. At this point, it was featuring 200 individual affinity groups. Within a week of the launch of a new feature to allow members to create their own home pages, over 15,000 members had begun using it. ^[7]

WBS frequently hosted real-time multimedia programming events, which only increased as its popularity grew. Such events attracted the likes of celebrities such as Tom Clancy, the celebrity cast of Star Trek, bands Soundgarden and Metallica, the former president of PBS, Lawrence Grossman from NBC News, United States Senator Arlen Specter, Intel CEO Andy Grove and feminist Gloria Steinem. ^{[7] [8]}

Executives

Bayard Winthrop, President and CEO of WBS, was a frequent spokesperson for the company. ^[9] After its buyout, he subsequently went on to become CEO of Freeboard, a San Francisco-based sporting goods manufacturer. ^[10]

Buyout

WBS was bought out in April 1998 by Infoseek for approximately USD 6.7 million (roughly 350,000 shares of Infoseek stock at that time). WBS boasted 2.7 million members, 350,000 member home pages, and an average of over 140 million page views per month (roughly 5 million per day). It was one of the largest and longest-running online communities on the internet. ^[11] Within the next year, the format of WBS completely changed. ^{[12] [13]}

In September 1999, Infoseek was bought out by the Go Network. ^[14] WBS was entirely dismantled without warning. All that was left for the members at that time was a simple message saying, "Go.Com has decided to close down WBS and move its most popular rooms to the chat rooms at Go.Com. Your home pages will still be viewable for an undetermined amount of time. Thank you for supporting WBS during its existence." Six months later, all home pages were completely erased.^{citation needed}

Aftermath

Many displaced members who had previously frequented the roleplaying game rooms on WBS began finding homes in new services that were springing up.

• Ethereal Realms
• Fate's Labyrinth
• Illusionary Minds Chat
• Infinity Bound
• Sanguinem Draconis
• Silver Crossings
• The Megaphone Chat Community
• Whispering Realms Chat
• World Broadcasting System

Some patrons of the general topic rooms migrated to sites such as WBSoutcasts. ^[15] A LiveJournal community was created in the wake of its namesake's disappearance. ^[16] It is suspected that many patrons moved to instant messaging software, the popularity of which was increasing substantially at that time.

Martin Foster developed software that offered several of the features of the original WBS and IFC that had gained popularity. This code has been used in developing numerous chat sites which have attracted many former patrons of the original WBS. Especially those who frequented the roleplaying rooms. It was originally developed to power Ethereal Realms, but the site now merely hosts the software for use on other sites.

WBS Relaunch attempt

A personal attempt spanning over a number of years was made by a former WBS member to resurrect the site. A general time line of the events comprising this effort is included below. The registrar for the wbs.net domain is currently GoDaddy and its records indicate that the domain was created 27 March 2002 will expire on 1 June 2008. As of 4 July 2007, the domain is not in use.

• May 2002: An individual under the handle of "ChillyBoob" purchases the then-dormant domain wbs.net. The domain holds only a landing page with a guestbook where former members can exchange communications and express opinions regarding the possible resurfacing of WBS. ^[17]
• September 2002: The site becomes a set of forums organized using the same categorization scheme as the original site. ^[18]
• January 2003: A new landing page appears indicating that plans are underway to add new member services. ^[19]
• April 2003: One of the planned member service offerings is revealed to be free e-mail. ^[20]
• November 2003: The site is replaced with a notice to indicate that it has been closed until further notice. ^[21]
• December 2003: The notice is changed to indicate that the site might return in early 2004. ^[22]
• February 2004: A new notice is put up stating that private development on the site is in progress and the domain owner has no intention of selling the domain. ^[23]
• May 2004: The site begins redirecting to the landing page of a different web site, seemingly that of the site's hosting provider, which most likely indicates that the hosting account has become inactive. ^[24]
• June 2004: A new notice is put up indicating that the site is accessible at a new address, which leads to a slightly modified version of the forums from September 2002. ^[25]
• August 2004: A new landing page offers a link to the forums as well as new sections for image galleries and games. ^[26]
• March 2005: wbs.net ceases to function and the site disappears, seemingly without any warning.

References