Happy Birthday Rennlist....

It was four years ago this weekend that a little e-mail list server hit the  "airwaves" and "Porschelist" was born - initiated from a small group of Founders who were "disgruntled" with a sporadic "Porschefans" list server -  PorscheList had 5,000 folks after only a few weeks. Utilizing a whopping 56KB partitioned internet connection, PorscheList was only an e-mail list server, without any web site, with the exception of a "front page" at  http://www.porschelist.org - as the http://www.porschelist.com site wasn't  even introduced until some months later with four founding sponsors including  Wayne at PelicanParts, Rob's dcAutomotive, Dave and Jeannie of 928  Specialists, and Dave B. with "Road and Race". While we have seen some Sponsors come and go since then - these businesses have been here since "Day  1" - and are still an integral part of this site. My thanks to all the Sponsors and Rennlist Members who keep this site going…  And now into our fifth year, there is no more "PorscheList" - it is  "Rennlist". And while it is still just Jen and I part time - the hardware has changed a bit from those first years.. Two high-speed dedicated circuits, 12 dedicated servers, routers, gateways, lots of custom programming - and about 150,000 visits per day with approximately 12,000,000 e-mails sent in 24  hours.. Overall, the site takes about 125,000 - 150,000 unique visitors per day (less on a weekend tho' - as most people are out driving )  And "how big" is Rennlist today?

On the web discussion forums alone, we have slightly over 7,500 "registered  users" - but if you look at the logs, there are about 5-6 "lurkers" for each  registered user who posts to the web Forums - so lets call that roughly  35,000 - 40,000 who surf in those Rennlist discussion forums...

On the e-mail lists, we have 82,000 registered e-mail accounts, but some of   them are "double" subscribed with a home account along with their company   account - so a conservative guess is about 61,000 - 62,000 unique   individuals.

In the Classifieds, we have posted just over 50,000 ads in the past two years   from 32,000+/- unique e-mail addresses and the Classifieds section takes   about 15,000 site hits per day... That's roughly 130,000 folks in *just* the major sections of the site..

As many know, we announced Rennlist Memberships three years ago this month as   well - and for paying Rennlist Members (not including "Lifers")- in the last   couple of weeks, we have just hit the 2,000 mark (which equates to about   $36,000 a year (for those of you who are breaking out your calculator:-)-   *if* everyone were to renew or pay the invoice when they initially join and   asked to be billed, but historically, fall-out is about 15% - so the actual   number is probably closer to 1,750 folks or $30,000 per year... (Now you know   why I still have my "day job":-)

Yep - this weekend - Rennlist (born: "Porschelist") now begins its fifth year   of operation - and Jen and I want to wish each of you a "Happy Birthday" and   our thanks for your support, enthusiasm and shaping Rennlist into, what many   believe, is the predominant automotive "community" within the Internet today.