Looking Back: DS Network

Ah DS Network- the first true website I’ve ran, and to think that that year it had gotten more additions and design changes and forums then my current sites get new layouts.

DS Network was the first time I decided “hey Publisher layouts are shit”, and when I started working on the website for it- it contained free layouts using cutenews and other php applications to essentially power itself.

It also had an Invasion Free forum- its hard to remember which came first the forum or the site- its kind of like what came first the chicken or the egg- and its essentially as redundant as that as well.

Content wise it featured what I had lying around from Swamp Island which related to the Nintendo DS- and was slightly updated to have the latest game announcements and media. (This same content was used essentially un edited on all my other sites relating to the Nintendo DS that year, aka Aussie-DS, DS Like etc.) The only thing missing from each website was the news which was powered by cutenews, which means each website had started fresh in that regard.

Article wise, it never really kicked off and I think there was a few previews which where made, but they are lost in time- while my blog (trinest.com) does contain a few articles from back then, its limited to what I have left and not was accuarly written back then.

DS Network was pretty dam successful if compared to Swamp Island, heck I’m pretty sure I kept most of the affiliates and only added more gaming related ones.

Because of this, a few people from the community wanted to help out- that was pretty cool, which is how Aussie-DS was made, we decided a new name was in order, especially one which embodied what we where about.

Though I think in the end we where all the wrong people to do the site, Aussie-DS did start to work for abit, heck we had a design made by a fellow affiliate who was happy to help out, and it was hosted on Ninhost then as well. (the site part) heck we also got a new forum as well.

Though little content was really made from everyone else, and even I didn’t put much in, so we decided to say hey lets have other people to come in and help out. Until we picked the worst people who basically screwed us over by taking the forum from under us. Because of this and the lack of activity leading up to the site I moved onto DS Like, and then shortly after Another Code labs.

DS Like really wasn’t meant to be for viewers- what it was in the end while it did contain affiliate links on the side (and used free layouts once again) it didn’t really offer anything new- and it was more of an archive of what was collected over the year then a fully functional website. I worked on it occasionally and added various other goodies, and downloads as well to the site to make it more interesting then what it was. But really it was closed in favor of Another Code Labs.

After I had worked on Another Code Labs for awhile, I was confronted by one of the people who worked on Aussie DS with me, saying we should start it up again- but by then I really wasn’t interested so everyone went their separate paths.

There really wasn’t much to say about these DS sites, they where typical DS sites for the time (media pictures from e3, collections of games etc.) at the time there where DS sites which did it better, though they disappeared shortly after as well. Most closing down others just merged with bigger sites etc.