A while ago, I was still thinking about what I should be writing about in my next big post on Pinoy Teens. Until I realized that every post is something big, it just depends which type of audience you try to cater and how you deliver such kind of article. With all these professionalism discussion, I find it hard to cope up with a quality post that could interest both old and new readers of this web blog nor the ones who arrive here from search engines. I had enough of all that and was at the rear shore of breaking this blog ones again into pieces, just like I have broken the bond that was within this community years back.

The domain name itself, Pinoy Teens dot Net is under my possession since the 25th of June, 2007. It was registered for me for free on a website that gave away free domain names for some posts that you do on their board. (could you imagine that, that I got this domain name at actually no cost at all?) It was formerly registered on domainrightnow.com and eventually moved to namecheap.com before I renewed the domain for another year in the middle of 2008. These geeky information isn’t what actually matters, but the stuff that’s about to follow is what does.

Pinoy Teens Online was not always a blog or a site that you might be thinking about. It required hard work for me to reach this far. I didn’t started as a blogger, rather, a forumer who was ones administrating a forum on this very domain name. Yes, I didn’t blog yet, until March 2008 here on Pinoy Teens Online. So, what was going on between June 2007 and March 2008?

Like I have mentioned above, this domain ones served a small community of teenagers who know nothing better but spam around. Spamming in a sense of having fun posting at forums about anything but sensual topics. I often had to clear whole boards of the forum because of the posters who are just up increasing their post count and gain more friends rather than contributing to the community at a whole. I humbly started Pinoy Teens with an initial staff of less than ten members, which grew one by one, until it started growing exponentiall; until my friend Alea has come along.

Alea, has been the center of attraction of the Filipino Teen Boards, Pinoy Teens Forums or whatever you want to call it. She has been the start that kept the people coming back, the way she manages the community, entertains new members and contributes to the website, it was just phenomenal. We had 15 members back then, and I was proud to call a few of them loyalist who would always stick around through thick or thin whether or not people are going on the forum. Aly has also been one of the very few that went along before I have closed down the boards.

My humble kick off to my web development had made me earn negative 20 to 30 US Dollars and I was stuck in a little debt that time, asking for donations from other people to help out my small community and objective which originally was to simply serve as a small communication portal for a small scale count of Pinoy Teenagers. I had less than a hundred visitors (per day) and less than a dollar adsense (in a month) during August – December, where I was pretty new to all these stuff.

But what has guided me through to make it this far? And have this blog built up? Where is the community gone that once ruled this domain?
It’s gone, it’s simply gone. Nothing lasts forever, especially if you don’t take care of it and if you don’t fight for it. Everything requires a decent amount of work before it goes right but not only does it involve the effort of yourself, but the contribution of the people around you; I was just lucky enough to have someone like Alea come along my way to help me get the community established and have some sort of reputation for this domain name.

But, at the other hand you may call me unlucky for knowing her, as it’s due her and another jealous online community that our former forum was hacked, taken down, and warned to be taken down again whenever I would try to stand on my own feet again. Where was she that time? Where was that guiding girl that has helped me reach and build this community until January of 2008? She was gone, going along with another guy of the opposition.

It’s a lesson well learned that I repeatedly meet, that all things do not last forever, just like I believed our friendship would not. The contemporaneous leaving of her has created headache, eventual heartache and sorts of other pain as I tried to get the community back that I so much longed about but lost in a glimpse of time. I was alone when I started everything again, when I wrote article after article, visited blog after blog and wrote topics after topic that could interest anyone out there. And I eventually made it. The subscriber count kept growing, my target audience increased and so have I started earning myself the money to get myself out of the financial problem and run the site with my own money, but is that all yet?

I’m reaching the point of a breakdown here once again. I don’t know if I can continue to handle this blog that appears to be the most ugly website in the whole world for my eyes. What is going on with me? I cannot think of anything to share with the audience that are involved in making or breaking my site and I fear to take down each and every single word I include in each article because I don’t want to be bashed about the next latest topic that I have posted, but I have got no choice.

A year ago, a hundred visitors was more than enough to make my smile reach heaven, but a hundred at present will make me feel like I am in hell. As if this blog is nonexistent. But, when I take a look back to the start where everything has began; I recall the ideas, my happiness and joy about even a single cent of adsense income, about even a single visitor that reaches my blog. What could I ask for more? I unconsciously surpassed by target of creating a community and have created a secondary home for people aside the loyalists. I’ve got readers who stick around with me, update after update. I have got people who notice my doings and feel happy about my work.

I know, I have reached some point that ones was very impossible for me to reach, I’ve come too far to take back anything that I have under my possession and I shall continue what I have started and continue running Pinoy Teens the way I always used to run it. Never being contented about the present and always longing for a better tomorrow. This is the attitude that has helped me out making it this far, being one of the top blogs that the Philippines has ever seen. I’ve got yet miles more to walk to reach the point of being famous once again, but I shall arrive at my target, just like I arrived there about a year ago.

What do you think? Have I really arrived somewhere since the beginning of this blog, or way back since the beginning of my online career in 2007?