Join me in this 10-15 part series as I unveil to the world the making of Pinoy Teens. How it all started, why we exist and more. This is an exclusive coverage of The Making of Pinoy Teens in line with the celebration of Pinoy Teens’ 5th year in existence this coming June 30, 2012.

We write the year 2006. This was the year that guided me into the realm of the Internet. We had no broadband then, but all I had at my disposal was a 56kb fast dial up connection. I remember downloading songs would take ten minutes or more – songs of around 4mb in size, ha.

One of only two things that kept me on the web was browsing one particular forum – sgcom as known to many which is just the abbreviation of sarahgeronimo.com. Yes, I was a huge fan of Sarah Geronimo then, and even until today I consider myself a Popster – for had I not roamed the boards of sgcom, I may not have gotten the idea to create a forum of my own. That’s another story.

I was so fascinated by te forum and spent more and more time on the board than on my other reason why I surfed the web then which was Friendster. My over 10000 forum posts speak for themselves.

Despite being a huge fan of our very own Pop Princess, I never really got myself to talk much about her, at her forum but rather enjoyed forum games and chatting around with other members. It got me worried a bit, until one day, I felt I have to separate myself from the board and create a place of my own, where truly anything goes.

An around 6 man strong team of sgcom, along with pioneer Izy Mae joined me in the creation of the first iteration of Pinoy Teens, known then as the Pasaway Forum early in 2007. The forum software that I used then, was SMF, which stands for Simple Machines Forum. It’s an open source software – making it the first ever FOSS product I used, even ahead of my favorite WordPress that I have come to get acquainted with at a later part.

Among other notable personalities that joined the very first version of my online work was also a certain Margarett. A good friend – even until now – who witnessed my product evolve through the years to what it has now become. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though.

Again.

It was then, when I truly got hooked into the online world, it was then when I discovered the endless possibilities of what I can do online. From the moment Pasaway Board surfaced online – the webmaster in me was born.

Update: Here is PART 2.