Neo Nutters of Neopia began its days at a free web-hosting service on
March 3, 2004. Created by Ari, our webmistress, it was simple and just for fun; it was never meant to become anything serious.
The layout consisted of a simple template that could have been whipped up in a matter of minutes, and the site had only 3 pages of content. The site originally started out with the name "Neo Nuts." This was later changed to "Neo Nutters." However, "NN" was a rather ridiculous acronym for the site (and, as you may know, a number of sites are referred to by their acronyms), so it was important to change the name to what it is now: Neo Nutters of Neopia.
NNoN's first layout. This is the old "Chat Secrets" page, which is now known as
NNoN Avatars.
After a couple of weeks, the site began to steadily grow in content. Soon there were 20 pages of content. At this point, Nilla (now retired) was hired to help out.
As the months went on, the site grew. Soon there were over 50 pages of content; more than 200 users visited everyday.
The site introduced a newspaper (
Nutty Scoop) and
forums.
It had become larger than several sites that had a domain – yes, we were still on the free hosting service then!
Kal was then hired to help with the ever-growing Neo Nutters of Neopia.
Shortly afterward, Nilla suggested the acronym "NNON", and it was used for a while until Kal suggested it be changed to "NNoN".
The latter remains to this day as the official acronym for Neo Nutters of Neopia!
Soon, the number of visits started to decrease.
This was attributed to the sudden appearance of ads placed by the free hosting company.
Something had to be done. So, on
February 6, 2005, after almost a year of being on a free host, NNoN moved to its current location,
neonuttersofneopia.com. However, the total amount of people visiting was still mediocre, even though the site had begun to post unreleased news. There was only one thing that could be done: get a new layout.
A designer and coder were hired to create a brand-new layout for NNoN. During the process, Kal agreed to merge his own Neopets fansite,
NeoIsle, with NNoN, donating some content in the process.
NNoN's second layout, a
huge improvement over the last one.
On
May 8, 2005, the new layout was released.
Along with its release was a load of new content.
By June, hits had reached around 500 visitors per day!
As news posting became better and more content appeared, NNoN entered 2006 with over 1,000 daily visitors.
NNoN began producing contests, topsites, quality graphics, and more.
It became the envy of several sites which it had envied just a couple months before.
As plots came and went, hits continued to increase.
However, a bump in a road had emerged with the forums.
The forums were crawling with bugs and were near collapse.
They were shut down, to be reopened in the future.
The site continued to prosper, even with the minor issue of the forum's buginess.
However, many things, including plot updates and other complaints, provided distractions from working on the forums.
As content, graphics, and news efficiency continued to grow, the forum problem was forgotten.
The new NNoN forum. It was available in a default Green theme and the Silver one seen here.
However, with the constant complaints, something had to be done.
The staff worked hard to produce the new NNoN Forums, which were released on
July 22, 2006.
A Negg giveaway was held to celebrate its release.
Meanwhile, a discussion about the site layout was introduced in the staff forums.
We receieved many suggestions from our staff, including re-organizing the sidebar and de-cluttering the layout.
While this was going on,
Nutty Rainbow was released on
July 30, 2006.
Over the next couple of months, NNoN was the same as usual.
Yhe staff were working hard on a secret project (
Walk Through Neopia)
and a
new layout. Walk Through Neopia introduced over
150 new pages of content! As you can imagine, it was quite a job. By mid-December, the new layout was fully prepared for its New Year 2007 debut. The sidebar had been re-organized, with far fewer links; game guides were listed in a new fashion; and, of course, Walk Through Neopia was released.
NNoN's third layout, which is still around today (with some changes, of course).
At midnight on
January 1, 2007, the new layout and Walk Through Neopia were released.
Within 10 minutes, the layout was in working order and ready to start a new year.
The release was a big success (except for the broken theme changer on the homepage,
a number of broken links,
and a black line on the left sidebar that wouldn't disappear :P).
We have been receiving over additional 500 unique hits a day since the release and all of those errors have been fixed.
The new layout brought the
third major department to NNoN -
Walk Through Neopia - which has proven to be a revolutionary way to organize content.
Nutty Commentary on November 17, 2007.
Things were pretty quiet for the next four months. So that's why we launched a department that deviated from the normal track - the
Nutty Commentary, our Neopets commentary section. Launched on
April 13, 2007, the topics written about vary greatly, as our commentary writers are a very diverse bunch with very different mindsets and opinions.
Over the course of the year, we have been adding a number of new features. On
May 19, 2007, we released our
Settings page; the day before, we had surprised our users with the "YOU ARE NOT PREPARED" Meepit. ;D Everyone was wondering what they weren't prepared for; it was fun!
During the
Altador Cup II, NNoN steadily unveiled a revolutionary feature that we dubbed the
Altador Cup II Portal. Users could select the team they supported, and after that, they would receive daily updates about their team's standing, matchups, and players right in their browser! The Portal was a success. Several other Neopets sites now have the same basic idea of supporting a team on their website.
On
June 25, 2007, we released a brand-new layout for
NNoN Graphics, which had been called
NNoN GX before the change.
We launched
Kalfd's Quests and the Nutty Points system on
August 24, 2007. Nutty Points are the site's currency, which can be spent at the Nutty Points Store on various things, including custom graphics!
NNoN Avatars, revamped, on November 17, 2007.
On
September 8, 2007, we completely revamped our
Avatars section. We renamed it to "NNoN Avatars". The greatest thing about the new section was the Search function!
Nutty Rainbow was given a complete makeover on
November 3, 2007. It was updated with a brand-new layout and the images of the "Neopets 2.0" pets. A couple months later later, we gave Nutty Rainbow another big upgrade by introducing
high-quality images, a pet emotion viewer, and settings.
NNoN brought back the Altador Cup Portal for the third Altador Cup, with a wider selection of graphics for supporters to use. We also provided day-by-day commentaries on the match results. Next year, we have even more features planned for the fourth Cup :)
On
September 7, 2008, NNoN released its "redesign". While the redesign didn't include a new layout, it did change the layout of NNoN. Major changes included a shift from a table-based layout to a CSS layout, a larger font size, quick theme-changing, and a wider content area. NNoN also released its own custom news system at the same time. The redesigned layout is currently the one you see today!
On
January 1, 2009, NNoN released
The Nuttery, the very first Neopets image database.
Today, NNoN is prospering and receiving a steady flow of visitors. Stay with us as we continue to make history!
