WebPetz

Summary

 * Site name: WebPetz
 * Web address: http://www.webpetz.com
 * Ran from/to dates: 9th April 1997 - Present Day
 * Webmaster: Don

WebPetz hosts games, demos, addons, developer tools and tutorials for a unique collection of virtual life and artificial life titles. The range includes among others: Creatures, Petz (both Dogz and Catz), Oddballz, Babyz and The Habitat, each of which takes the form of a sub-site.

History
WebPetz first opened early 1997 under the name of The AmberDawn. The website's name was inspired by Don's interest in the gemstone amber and its ability to perfectly preserve and share the past:


 * Amber is a naturally occurring fossilised resin from ancient trees that forms an opaque yellow to golden orange gemstone with supposed magical qualities, often used in jewellery. Many different species have been found trapped inside amber chunks dating over hundred of millions years old.

By 2000 the website had grown large enough that it had to be broken into several separate sites for each of the games it supported. As such WebPetz underwent it's first major (anniversary) redesign on April 9th. The Creatures section became known as AmberCreatures.

In 2001 Don decided she wanted to remove all advertising from the site and bought amberz.net to replace the sponsored go.to address. Unfortunately after registering the domain the hosting company revealed they only supported domain masking. In 2002 she completed the transition to an advert-free website by moving away from the instability of free hosting to a reliable hosting company, and has remained with them ever since.

Then in 2003 Don registered amberzoo.co.uk with a new registrar in order to use the more professional IP pointing. The new domain was to accompany the complete website redesign of May 10th 2003. As part of the new look WebPetz was totally updated and even changed from a full screen layout to a fixed width design to take into account the increasing resolutions new monitors could support at this time.

For 2005 a more descriptive domain name was selected for the virtual pet website and 'WebPetz' seemed appropriate. Two years on from the last redesign another complete website revamp took place, the results of which should go live in 2006.

Web Address History

 * WebPetz 2005: http://www.webpetz.com
 * The AmberZoo 2003: http://www.amberzoo.co.uk
 * AmberzNetwork 2001: http://www.amberz.net
 * The AmberDawn 1997: http://go.to/amberdawn