One year ago we publicly opened up Screeze to the world, amid a few days of staggered beta previewing and an odd puzzle event going on starting 6 days before launch(see here [read from bottom up][Hint: Look for italics. Click on the word afro in each post]). It was a slow start but we still deemed it successful and we are absolutely thrilled with the position we are in today. Who could have guessed at launch we would be such a great forum with tons of features, some of which never before used on a MyBB powered forum to our knowledge.

Everything wasn’t always perfect though. The personal blogs feature was a flop, Screeze Spaces never started up correctly due to a last minute fatal bug, and our attempts at weekly web shows eventually died with the loss of the Video Section. However, we believe these losses made us as a whole more experienced and better prepared to bring some of the more awesome features such as Screeze being an OpenID provider(a direct result of Screeze Spaces work), the arcade, login and register using external services such as Facebook or Twitter, the ScreezeBar with ScreezeIM, lets not forget all of the community events and ScreezeExperience products(Urban Terror server, Screeze Desktop, etc.), and the list goes on and on.

Many people were responsible for our success but our users were and are the number one cause. We would like to especially thank the early testers and users of Screeze:

• Suenos
• EleminoP
• mellis71094
• JohnnyAndKlaudio
• FROPLUME

We would also like to thank our current leaders in the community of Screeze(there will be repeats):

• Locolewis
• FROPLUME
• GoodgodfEllow (Formerly EleminoP)
• indie
• naturemon
• Every person listed here: http://screeze.com/forum/memberlist.php

I personally also have some special thanks to throw out here:

• Austin – For coming up with the idea for Screeze, hosting us, and dealing with me all the time
• FROPLUME – For starting out with us and coming back He’s also on the Screeze Board
• indie – For being awesome and helping out on the Screeze Board
• naturemon – For being a cactus and helping out on the Screeze Board
• Locolewis – For posting nonstop all the time and taking the almost painful humor against him like a champ
• GoodgodfEllow – For providing the site with never ending fun and humor
• MrBen – For being a great moderator while he was with us and for posting so much that months after he left he still has the number two spot in post counts and is the richest user in terms of ScreezeCash
• JohnnyAndKlaudio – For helping us out with our first taste of exclusive content
• Suenos – For being so interested in the beginnings of Screeze and actually winning the launch mystery event
• One With a Deleted Account – For giving us experience with our first spam alerts and dealing with disorderly users *cough*

Hopefully no one should feel left out

Here’s to a great year two!

Be sure to leave a post in the memories thread on Screeze! http://screeze.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=871

You can use this service to give us feedback or praise on what we do. You can also submit ideas or tell us about any problems you are having. This will not replace our bug tracker but you can report bugs on Get Satisfaction instead of our bug tracker and we will put it on the bug tracker for you.

We have also placed a feedback widget to the side of most pages of Screeze so that you can easily access Get Satisfaction and tell us about any problems you have, or ideas, comments, etc.

It is our hope that this becomes a useful tool for the visitors and users of Screeze.

Also, we are bringing another site into our family. We’re not going to disclose the site until all of the merger intricacies are done and over with, but we hope that you will enjoy what this newly merged site will bring to the table. HINT: We see some gaming in our future.

Lastly, sorry for the lack of posts recently. We will try our best to make sure that we post more often.

The most current update appends a version number to the footer.

Because we don’t want you to think we just pulled this number out of thin air, here is a list of major previous Screeze versions.

• 0.10 – Prelaunch

• 0.50 – Prelaunch Beta

• 0.90 – Prelaunch Opening Prep

• 1.00 – Launch

• 1.50 – Video Section

• 2.00 – ScreezeID/OpenID Authentication Support

• 2.30 – Spam Prevention Updates

• 2.50 – Internal Updates

• 2.60 – Screeze Toolbar Support

• 3.00 – Screeze Store

• 3.50 – Custom Profile Service

• 3.70 – Updates to Profile Service

• 3.80 – Internal Updates

• 3.90 – Internal Updates for Facebook Connect Support

• 3.95 – Facebook Connect Support Limited Technical Preview

• 4.00 – Facebook Connect support for registration and login of new and current members

• 4.10 – Screeze Blog

• 4.20 – Profile Service Updates

• 4.30 – OpenID Implementation Updates

• 4.50 – Internet Explorer Rendering Fixes

• 4.60 – ‘Like A Post’ Feature Added

• 4.70 – ScreezeID/OpenID Authentication Interface Updates

• 4.75 – Loading Screen Removed

• 5.00 – Interface Changes; Low-Resolution Optimization; IE Compatibility Extended; Shoutbox Updates; External Service Logins prepared for other services than Facebook; Internal Updates

• 5.50 – Partner System; OpenX Powered Ad Rotation; Internal Updates

• 5.60 – Screeze Newsletter

• 5.61 – Limited Edition Items

• 5.75 – Windows Live ID and PSN ID login support

• 5.80 – Entertainment Section

• 5.85 – ScreezeCash Income Values Modified

• 5.87 – Private Help Section

• 5.90 – Arcade Code Updates; Games Added; Internal Updates

• 5.99 – Internal Updates in preparation of 6.00; Site closed for approximately 31 hours for maintenance in preparation of 6.00

• 6.00 – ScreezeBar Added; ScreezeIM System added; Shoutbox moved to iframe; Store moved to iframe; External Application Support; AJAX features in some areas disabled; Internal Updates;

• 6.05 – AJAX features restored in Thread Creation, Reply Creation, and PM creation. ScreezeBar is also now disabled in those areas.

• 6.10 – Internal Updates

• 6.20 – Video Section and Newsletter Notification Removed

• 6.21 – Version Number appended to footer

Version 6.2.1200 should be released shortly after this is posted. It will show a changelog when the version number is clicked.

Updates on Screeze progress and maybe some screenshots will be provided on the Screeze Blog during the downtime. If Screeze is accessed during the downtime, a link to the Blog will be given so that visitors may get the relevant information.

If there is a feature you would like added during the downtime, leave a comment and we will see what we can do.

Update:

Here is a display of one of the new Screeze features and how that feature looks as of 1:03 PM EST(look may end up changing before release). We’ll leave it up to you to figure out what it is.

The member bars have been made IE compatible and so has the shoutbox(only tested in IE8). The external service features currently used only for Facebook have been prepared for other services as well.

The unused userblogs feature has been prepared for removal as well.

This was originally put in place due to a suggestion by Screeze user locolewis. While it seemed like a good idea for adding some eye candy to the site, the loading screen in reality was just something that annoyed and wasted time, therefore it was removed.

Happy Googling! …I guess…