Introduction
Ski.com.au was the first snow sport website in Australia to be registered (May 1995), however the long demised 'Cyberski' beat ski.com.au to public launch by a few months back in May 1995 with ski.com.au first publishing some weeks later in July 1995 to primarily service online snow reports. The site has since grown, shrunk and grown again and now provides a modest range of content servicing Australians wishing to visit the snow.
Ski.com.au was called and initially known as Sno-Info, highlighting it's focus in the early days of providing information about snow sports and the related services that punters require to have a good time in the snow fields. The name Sno-Info also reflected the trend of the day to name information portals after the subject they catered to, e.g. Cric-Info (cricket) Fish-Info (fishing) etc. All now long gone except for ski.com.au.
The two principal protagonists, Ian and Richard, have slaved tirelessly to bring Australia the premier snow resource in the country.
It is supported by an avid (rabid?) army of volunteers who have formed a community that is physical and virtual, sustained over most of the site's life. An annual conference at a ski resort brings both the owners and the army together to share life's pleasures.
History
1995
First published in July 1995 after one of the founders approached a local Newcastle ski shop about putting snow reports online. Initially it was just NSW snow reports and based on the daily faxes that were sent to Ian who was at Uni at the time and updated from there.
Unfortunately no screen grabs exist of the original website.
1996
The site was designed and coded entirely by Ian (using notepad) in his final years at Newcastle Uni as a PH.d student (Physics). Most of the web was built by science and/or computing students in those days who cared little for graphic design principles, as can be seen here. It's worth noting that 10" & 12" moniters were standard at the time and a 640x480 screen resolution was considered luxuriously large.
The site was also constructed with three frames - which seems ludicrous today but the objective was to keep the site fast (speed still a major design consideration today) by not reloading masthead and navigation with each new page - painfully slow 9600 & 14400 dial-up access to the Internet was all anyone had in 1995.
Unfortunately the screengrab does not show the lovely annimated .gif of a skiier going downhill that Ian proudly created and placed at the top of the left-side navigation bar.
A couple of other interesting points are revealed with this screengrab; There is no discussion forum yet and the community resided at the old-school Aus.Snow newsgroup (linked from the menu). But perhaps more interestingly, a singularly momentus event is revealed with the listing of Wellsmore's Accommodation service. Out of the blue in early September 1996, Wellsmore's had phoned Village Ski Shop and asked "how much it was to advertise on the site". In a moment of inspiration Richard replied "$199 per annum" (pre-GST) and the commercial Ski.com.au was born. This and the tradeshow report places the screengrab between mid October and late November 1996.
1997
1998
No screen grab exists of this year
1999
| We actually commissioned a graphic designer this year! |
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2000
2001
2002
| The year of "the change" from Sno-Info to ski.com.au as the brand. |
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2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
