The History of JN

Jellyneo was restarted by Dave, former Admin of the old JN, on August 22, 2004. At first, times were sluggish. Not many people took notice to JN or joined. The staff accepted to work for JN disappeared and sometimes never came back. The layout was rather plain as well, and it loaded at a snail's pace. But then, there was a turning point in JN's short history.

JN's first layout... (with a Halloween theme)

The HATIC plot had recently begun, and a few chapters were released. There was rumoured to be some battles in the battledome, so Dave was looking around for some new challengers. (This is where the story gets good.) He came across two of them. Heart pounding, he checked around most of the big sites, and none had them posted! So, he posted the incredible findings on JN and then went around to some of the major sites and posted the challengers, giving full credit to JN. As it was hoped, this was instant success for JN! (See, I said it was good!)

That weekend of the findings, November 13th and 14th, bandwidth usage and visitor count skyrocketed. (Which was good in those days when we didn't use much. :P) Most of the day, no less than ten people were on, browsing JN. However, the site was quite slow and sluggish. Dave also received a few complaints from new visitors that the layout loaded slowly and was quite plain. The simple solution to this was to create a new layout, and so he did. The new layout created used half as many images and had one hundred less lines of coding, so of course, it was an excellent improvement load wise.

JN's second layout... (using the Default theme)

2005

With the new layout in place, Dave now had time to use his coding genius around the site. (Dave isn't writing this. *shiftyeyes*) Several new additions included the Bug Report form, which has helped with thousands of bugs since its release. The jnPortal was also added in mid January. It included numerous helpful things to help Neopians get around. It was also the first major coding project for JN.

February and March 2005 also saw some cool new goodies added to JN's arsenal of content. During those months, we added very much liked features such as the Random Event and Battledome Challenger generators. The Random Event Generator even had cool styles to choose from based on different Neopian worlds. We also had finished one of many incarnations of the Graphics Department. To this day, we still don't have one. And I think we're on our fourth graphics administrator. :P

The next few months just skipped right by, and unfortunately nothing exciting happened. Or at least nothing that I can remember... (Though we probably added site themes during this time.) However, August 2005 came and then the excitement rose. It was JN's first birthday! Yes! We survived a whole year! It certainly surprised me. To celebrate, (earlier in the month, though) we released our first site-wide competition scavenger hunt thing. It was great, and you can read about it (and our other past contests) here. The only bad thing about it was that our forums had to shut down. The load was so much, that they had to go, or else we'd have been booted off of our server. So, for months, we went forumless. (Well actually, the staff were allowed in the forums. We just couldn't let members in.) Then, we got to move hosts again, and the forums were again usable in January 2006. However, the old ones were just too massive to upload, so we had to restart.

2006

Around this time, we also started our second on-site plot, which has been given the nickname Slimy Slorgs Unite. (It never had a formal name.) This one was a lot more fun, as you had to solve a puzzle in order to get the token. Plus, the puzzles were just plain cool. March brought a lot of cool new features. We added an RSS feed for the Neopets news, along with a new Avatar Database that allows any staff to add new avatars. Plus, it's searchable! The coding genius was done by Stephen. April came along, and we played a fantastic April Fool's Joke. It actually fooled people, which in my opinion is an accomplished joke. Instead of telling you about it, I'll just link to it. I can't wait till next April Fool's Day.

During April, Dave was inspired to change the layout. Our second layout lasted for over a year and a half. It was time for change. (Plus, we needed something to celebrate our 10 millionth hit with.) We were quite excited to get it up in place, as it was a total update in style, and the coding was much nicer. It also saw some improvements in how things are displayed. You could have a calendar, or choose not to see one! A picture of our third official layout is below... with a Mystery Island theme!

JN's third layout... with a Mystery Island theme!

Once the layout was out of the way, we embarked on an even larger project of constructing an item database. We actually began work on it in March 2006, but didn't start recruiting people to build it until June. This was our first actual "department" or major section at JN, so we were excited about releasing it. :)

We were also super excited about reopening the forums (again) after some mid-summer downtime! There were a few giveaways to help hype up the release, of which we accumulated many donations that have been used in other events.

One event this past summer was a huge celebration of JN's second birthday. We've been in the business for two long years, and we plan on going on even longer. :D To celebrate such an event, we hosted a little logic puzzle to occupy our visitor's minds for a few days. You can view the results here. We also had plenty of giveaways to use up some of that excess NP we had lying around.

The next big thing to happen to JN was the opening of our Item Database. On September 30, 2006, we opened the doors to the biggest project JN has taken on to date. It's been in the works since March of 2006, and since then our records have grown to over 28,000 items. We also added in a wishlists feature that allows you to create your own wishlists. :)

Around mid-December, to celebrate the opening of the Item Database, and to get people interested in it, we put together an item scavenger hunt. Participants had to run around the database looking for 25 items, released over the span of 5 days. Unfortunately, the hunt caused much havoc on the server, and at some times rendered the database completely unusable. Wasn't very smart of us to do a hunt in the DB. :P

Luckily, we pulled through, people submitted their codes, and we were all happy campers in the end when prizes were issued! The New Year came, and we all celebrated making it through yet another year at JN. :)

2007

We then did something radical at the end of February... we hired two graphic designers!!! I know, it came to a shock to all, even myself. We had a lot of nice applicants, too. Unfortunately, we had to whittle the talented people down to only two. We picked two great people, too! One of them, the (in)famous Rosie, is responsible for the Restock Machine comics that all of those BDCers know and love.

Things were going great. So great that we decided to exploit our user base and totally brainwash them into using that website called Marapets! This was, of course, our 2007 April Fool's joke. ;) If you'd like to see what the joke looked like, take a peek by clicking here. Just a warning... the artwork is bright and may be painful to the eyes. :P

A couple days after April Fool's, we released a fun, little department on JN, the Pet Directory. It's our answer to the numerous petpages on Neopets that document a pet for each species and color of Neopet. However, we've easily combined about 4,698 petpages into one, neat package. You can add your own pets today!

To celebrate Easter, we also had a fun little Negg hunt. Twelve neggs were stolen by rabid, mutated cybunnies. They were in totally random places around the site. Upon finding each one, a question about one of our staffers had to be answered. It was definitely one of our more challenging competitions! All in all, we had 146 people completely finish and rescue all 12 neggs. :) The neggs were drawn by the infinitely talented Rosie, whom you heard about a couple paragraphs up. :P All twelve of them were absolutely stunning, and most of them were completely original.

*HISSS*

Mid-April also brought a milestone event to JN! We obtained our 25 millionth hit on the main site! We of course had to celebrate with great giveaways, and we ended up giving out over 60 cool items. About two months later, we released a new site theme centered around the Altador Cup madness that had enveloped all of Neopia. We also offered a cool feature where you could select a team logo to display on JN to show your support!

For our next big project, we released a new feature that helped to organize our content for our visitors. The Guide to Neopia is a mini-Neopia located right on JN. We set it up so that you could visit each map in Neopia, but instead of visiting each place, you could find articles and information on the place you wanted. For example, if you wanted to know about the Island Mystic, simply visit Mystery Island in our Guide and click the Mystic's hut. You'll be transported right to JN's guide containing information on the avatar and the fortunes you can receive.

Towards the end of summer 2007, Dave decided to dedicate himself to making the Item Database the best it could be. We rolled out feature after feature. Major enhancements included Neohome Vision, Wearability of clothes, and eventually, a completely new layout. We're constantly working on adding new things to the DB so that when you look up an item, you get to learn as much about it as you are able to.

Our forums, one of the oldest things on JN apart from the site itself, also received a much needed upgrade in August. Our upgrade enabled us to have new profiles, more skins, and the addition of a currency system that we released for our birthday. All in all, members were very pleased with the upgrade.

That brings us to the next new featured we released to our visitors... the Editorial! Unlike past projects we've taken on, the Editorial came into existence because it was voted on by our forum members. Out of all the options we offered, this one rose to the top. Since then, we've released a new editorial almost every weekend since its first publication date. Each issue is filled with plenty of humor, informational questions, and lots of other cool stuff. We've also had the occasional guest editor answer your questions... or in Dr. Sloth's case, take you out with his ray of death.

Our third birthday party was also the biggest celebration we've had to date! It was an entire week filled with new stuff, giveaways, and plenty of fun. New themes for the main site, portal, and forums were all released, along with the revamp of our Item Database. We also took this time to release the next JN department: The Book of Ages! The first of its kind, The Book of Ages is a database of the many characters of Neopia. There's a ton out there, so we're constantly adding new ones, and updating the profiles of older ones as new information is revealed. Check it out today! It's great for Neopets roleplays or if you're a Neopian History Buff in the making. :)

With the summer over, the pace of new stuff kind of simmered down. We spent that time, however, working on totally revamping and streamlining our jnAccounts system. With the new coding, we're easily able to add new sections that only jnAccount users can access. The new system also allows us to provide a more firm bond with our users, as they can now have the option of "signing up" with JN.

As you all know, with customisation making its debut in Neopia, old pet poses died, and new pet poses took their places. Unfortunately, TNT never updated the Rainbow Pool, leaving many Neopians in the dark about what their new pets would look like. After being asked time and time again by our visitors to create an alternate Pool with the new poses, we did so and released it in October. The New Rainbow Pool includes poses of every new pet, just as it would look like when you paint it. It's also capable of showing either one species or one color of pet at a time, unlike other pose databases out there that require you to view too many at once.

By mid-October, we had also started our first annual Costume Contest. Out of all the contests we've held, I think this was our best. There were some really creative costumes out there, especially considering the lack of clothes for some species. We also learned some very valuable lessons on how best to run a costume contest. :P For Halloween this year, we also ran our infamous Meepits Attack! plot. Evil ghost meepits had descended upon JN, and it was up to you guys to fight them off by solving puzzles removing the meepits from the site. Luckily, we all escaped and JN returned to a relatively normal state after Halloween... at least for a while!

The JN Staff just can't seem to stay out of trouble, and Christmas season saw a huge mix-up occur when some of them went present shopping together!

2008

January started the year off with a new News System, and the return of comments - now tied directly into JN Accounts.

Early 2008 saw the release of our Modeling department, run by the husband-and-wife team of Katje and Aeternus. This section collects image examples of all sorts of wearables, and incorporates the images as previews in the Item Database.

Everyone likes bragging once in a while - and what better way than showing off exactly how many times you beat AAA in Daily Dare? With our Daily Dare Stat Images, released in March, users were able to update all their scores on JN, and see the image they chose update automatically - no matter where it was!

We just can't seem to ignore April Fools - and this year was no different. While our Premium Service did have a disclaimer announcing it was a joke, quite a few people didn't seem to notice!

Following on the success of the Daily Dare records, June saw the release of Altador Cup Records, which allowed users to show off just how good at those games they were!

July saw us hit a new milestone - 50 MILLION Hits! Way to go, JN! The month also saw our Dailies feature get some special updates, making them even more user friendly.

July was a busy time at JN - we released our sister site, Twin Skies Help (closed in November of 2009), which assisted users in the new virtual world of Twin Skies, launced by Neopets Creators Adam and Donna. We were also lucky enough to snag special interviews with both Donna and former Neopets game programmer Ollie (aka The Phantom Orange Shirt Guy), who moved to the new project as well.

In the summer of 2008, we held our first Altador Cup Staff Tournament. Each of the 16 teams was represented by a JN staff member, and they duked it out until one was determined champion - Dandy! Users were able to predict both the final placement and individual matches, with winning guessers receiving trophies.

August not only saw us celebrating our fourth birthday, but also the release of a brand new JN Service - Goal Counters! These personalized counters don't require you to ever edit the image - all users have to do is edit the numbers on JN, and the image will automatically update!

On the same day as Goal Counters were released, however, tragedy occured - JN staffers were Taken Hostage by the Mutant Cybunnies from the first Negg Hunt!

Our latest site layout, which had gone into beta-testing in July, officially replaced the old one on October 3rd, with several different Site Themes available from the get-go.

The JN Costume Contest made a return in October for its 2nd year, with Acandinhas leaving victorious.

The JN Editorial reached the momentous 50th-issue mark near the end of October - and to celebrate, we released a special Podcast Edition! Featuring Nynex, Terry, and Suzuka, it allowed users to hear some of the staff members' voices for the first time!

For those who wanted to hear even more, our Happy Holidays animation provided even more opportunities - prerecorded messages from several staffers (as well as a unique song segment provided entertainment both for visitors and the staff themselves.

We finished off the year with the release of an entirely new department - our in-depth guide to Key Quest! With prize listings, game (and mini-game) guides, power-up listings, and token images, it is the most comprehensive Key Quest guide on the web!

2009

Every year ought to start with a bang - and we aimed to please with the release of our searchable Editorial Database. Every editorial, from issue 1 of the old Neopian Times, all the way through the most current one is featured - as are all the JN Editorials, although they're easily distinguishable.

April Fools saw the release of our most elaborate prank yet - JellyPets! While there are no plans to ever make the site real, the questions and interest absolutely poured in!

Our second Negg Hunt was held in April, and introduced something completely new - an interactive flash interface, designed by Rosie!

May saw JN making the foray into Twitter, allowing our users to get instant updates when news is posted, guides are added, and more!

The Altador Cup Staff Tournament was held once again in 2009, with Rylon taking the victory for Maraqua, while newcomers Labhaoise and Sirius taking second and third.

August was a busy month! - on the month of our fifth birthday, we debuted JN Trophy Cabinets, our guide to Petpet Park, updated the "My Dailies" service, and released our 100th editorial - a special podcast edition! Whew!

In October, we held our third annual Costume Contest, with some updates - more NC items were allowed, and instead of just the first 150 getting in, the Admins selected the top 150 submissions sent in during the week.

December saw the introduction of Feature Spotlights every other weekend, with alternating ones being filled with editorials. The first one started off with a bang - the features spotlighted were brand new! The Book Checklist and Gourmet Checklist tie directly into the Item Database, and proved very popular!

2010

January started the year off well, with the release of the Neopian Tour Guide feature, which added piles of information to our Guide to Neopia, as well as tying it in with the Book of Ages.

Speaking of the Book of Ages, January also saw it get a complete makeover! Now much more user-friendly, it includes advanced search options, updated bottom links, and more results per page!

No one is perfect - and JN definitely has its share of bugs. Thanks to users like you reporting them, we're able to keep as up-to-date as possible. And, as a thank you, we debuted a new trophy in March!

March also saw the return of the jnPortal, now directly connected to your jnAccount, and fully customizable! Brand new user modules and themes help make everything perfect for you!

We were a little mean in April - we "discovered" a Jelly Chia Key Quest token and pages from a "Jelly World" plot for April Fools. We like to think we made up for it a few days later with the release of the third Negg Hunt, which was fancier than ever!

Hopefully the future will bring great prosperity to JN. :) You can look forward to full coverage of upcoming plots, along with the inception of our next big projects... Whatever the future brings, you can bet your Blobikins that we'll be there!