History
The Beginning: where it all started
This site was officially launched on October 28th 2003.
I liked Pokemon, and since I has access to the internet, I liked to search around Pokemon sites. My favourite site was called Mew’s Hangout. I watched it grow and grow. I vividly remember when used to visit it when it had that blue layout with Pokeballs flying around your mouse. The owner, Mewkitty, made many digitally drawn pictures which were executed with increasing knowledge and originality. It was that site which inspired me to make this one. By the time I launched mine, the layout was much better on Mew’s Hangout, and then Mewkitty got her own .com address. I still carried on. I knew that one day, my site would developed and maybe become as great as hers. Thank you very much Mewkitty. She also inspired me to draw on the computer with her drawing tutorials which was namely a tutorial with a Pichu! Joey and Jolty’s home also gave me the courage not to give up and to carry on moving forwards.
Once I launched my site, it was certainly not of the best quality. I made a boring brown-orange layout which was too heavily based upon a site already online and not unique at all. It was basically one page with lots of of broken links. I really regret doing that. Then I slowly added the pages, and after that I used one of Mew’s Hangouts free layout (at the time they were much better then I could ever do). I still didn’t really know how to run a webpage. However, Mewkitty helped me through her e-mails. I then started to get affiliates, and thank you Joey and Jolty’s Home (my very first affiliate) for helping my site in becoming more popular by increasing our visitors.
When I finally did all my pages, after practising a lot with my HTML (a scripting language used to create webpages), I made a quite simple green layout. I was very proud of it nevertheless. It was then when I got more experienced with Paint Shop Pro 8 (an art program), and this was when I started producing much nicer pictures. I also added a forum and a topsite. Then I got a bit bored of the old layout and started on a brand new one which I was quite impressed by, which was quite similar to Suta-Raito’s old layout.
When the problems started: hosts
I then had a few problems with my new host, who has a server overload and went down, then my other host disagreed with hosting me (as I shamefully used it as file storage, and only a few pages of me site were there, I feel really sorry and guilty that I did that).
Later on, I found another free host who gave me unlimited bandwidth. I then started accepting staff on my site, and since then I have added more content.
Soon came another layout, this time compatible with all the main web browsers (unlike the last one which was only viewable in Internet Explorer). I then got more and more hits, and even more content. My forum also gained more popularity quite rapidly and so did the oekaki. I also opened a Pokemart, which I put a considerable amount of time in to make it.
Disaster Struck
The entire Pichu’s World site was deleted due to the fact that one person direct linked my entire sprite archive and exceeded my bandwidth limit. I was very pessimistic, and I thought I could never re-build my site. I did have a few backups, but there were not recent. Eventually, I decided to take action and I am appreciative of the many people who supported me! A friend of mine said he would temporarily host me until I would be able to pay for my own host. I uploaded all of my files that I could, and I went through every page updating it, etc. After over a month of downtime Pichu’s World was back online! Phew.
back on our feet: expansion and growth of the site
Pichu’s World continued to gain hits; in September 2005 Pichu’s World reached a total of almost 160 unique hits in one day. A great achievement.
Our old oekaki host was not really suited to our needs; it was good for a small, inactive oekaki, but once the oekakis grew I kept on going over my bandwidth limit. I decided to search for a new host and I came across another free host. It offered unlimited bandwidth, perfect for a growing oekaki! A few new oekaki boards joined our collection; the upload, and the doodle, making it 4 in total.
Our oekakis boards grew very quickly in popularity, with a lot of people migrating from Mew’s Hangout Oekaki. On peak times we had almost 20 members online at once. I also installed a colourin board, which proved very popular as well. Unfortunately, the forums seemed to be having a worse time; no members were posting and no new users were joining. I decided to give all the members of Pichu’s World a Christmas present — a new forum. I left our old forum host which enforced banners on us and move to a new, bannerless host.
Pichu’s World continued to expand and grow, many new pages were added and the oekakis and forums increased in popularity greatly. Unfortunately, on the 24th January 2006, our oekaki and forum host closed down abruptly with no warning. Due to the fact that the latest backup didn’t save correctly, I had to use an even older backup. Learn from my mistakes guys — always back up important information! However, in mid-February Wooper of Pokeden agreed to host my oekakis. Our oekakis were thankfully saved. Since then we have gained over 300 members, and after a bit of work we regained popularity on the oekaki boards.
Forums were moved to a brand new free host. Our site was scattered all over the place — the forums, oekakis and main site are all hosted on different servers due to space restrictions and reliability. Nevertheless I manage to run everything quite smoothly. Anyway, one host notified me that he was closing down the site. That left me with a dilemma; where will the site go? Luckily our fans and my friends were able to help, and, once again, we moved hosts.
More troubles
So what happens next? KABOOM goes our brand new host. It was almost 3 years since I opened up Pichu’s World, and we’ve had some pretty darn bad luck. I am presented with one new option; buy a hosting account. So, I searched for some cheap but reliable hosting, and I find Jkaizer in July 2006. I claimed this to be a “fresh start” for a more stable site, and I hope that it will stay like that. Since the old forums were lost, as well as the topsite, I installed a brand new forum software, SMF, which provided to be much more “flashy” and fast. However, a few months later they were closed due to inactivity. Meanwhile, the oekakis proved to be growing fast. We reached a huge number of 500 members as we continued to grow.
I then moved to another new host since JKaizer was having host troubles. Luckily, Eevee-chan of Eevee’s HQ offered to host us for free. Thank you so much, Eevee-chan! We moved on the 17th January 2007. I decided the centre the site of graphics, more than information, since that was one of my strong points.
We get a domain name
All this time, we never had our own domain name. Sableye of Pokemon Nightmare ever so kindly donated us our current “.com” name, which came into use ever since 19th February 2007.
A Pichu’s World revolution
On the 28th May 2007 we merged with a site named Pikachu’s Hideaway. Cliochu became the co-owner of Pichu’s World alongside Pinkie Pichu. This was a great change, which did cause a bit of mixed views on the decision, but generally had a positive inpact on the site. It enabled Pichu’s World to gain over 60 pages of content.
Shortly after, I eventual bought my own host from as I decided the the monetary investment would be well worth it. This increased our picture limits, as well as giving everybody a faster service.
The SMF forums were re-opened to the public where they will hopefully become more of a success than last time.
On the 28th October 2007, a beta version of the colourin oekaki was opened. This version was much improved since it could handle the approval of linearts at a touch of an admin’s button, as opposed to manually uploading all the outlines.
Specialisation
After some time, Pikachu’s Hideaway split of from Pichu’s World once again. Since then, we have decided to specialise in the graphics area of Pichu’s World as it suits my talents best, and for one person in full-time education, it makes more sense to concentrate on a specific section. We hope to continue to grow and expand, with a greater focus on community drawing.