The First Version of Our Clock

Because our site has become so successful in the three and a half years it’s been online, it’s fun for us to look back down memory lane to see how the Online Alarm Clock first got started.

We recently wrote about how Digg gave Online Clock our first big break.

But in addition to Digg, we have to be thankful to the large legion of bloggers who have written about OnlineClock.net over the years.

To the best of our knowledge the first blog to write about Online Clock was the Spanish-language technology blog GenBeta:

GenBeta Logo - The First Blog to Write About Online Clock!

And, regarding the first version of Online Clock that they wrote about, it was a lot different from the clock that we all know and love today!

Back when we first launched we played around with the idea of creating an all-Flash Online Alarm Clock. However, once we decided on a Freemium business model (a free, advertising-supported service), we realized that online ad delivery was extremely important. Suffice it to say that if you have an all Flash site, or a site that’s mostly built in Flash, it’s more difficult to incorporate advertising into your content.

We knew from the beginning that, if we didn’t generate ad revenue, we couldn’t afford the powerful servers that host Online Clock, and couldn’t afford to pay any further marketing costs…all of which are necessary evils.

So, take a gander at the earliest version of the Online Alarm Clock on record in this screenshot of the original GenBeta post entitled, “Online clock, tu reloj online con alarma“:

What’s amazing to us, looking back at this blog entry, is that it’s dated March 28th, 2006. As you can tell by our domain’s WhoIs information, we actually registered our domain first on March 26th, 2006…just four days before this blog post was published! Those guys at GenBeta found us in a hurry, and we’re thankful for that. In case you’re wondering, on the same day the domain was registered, the first version of Online Clock actually went live.

We know what you’re thinking, “What kind of a crazy, cigar-shaped Online Alarm Clock was that?!”.

And you’re right…it was kind of goofy, as you’ll note from the screenshot of the blog post above. Thank god we soon ditched this early version and latched onto the lean, mean, black clock machine everyone now knows and loves!

If you’re interested in taking a closer look at this earlier version of our Online Alarm, the original blog post is still online…or you can read it translated into English here. (Yes, it’s short, but as with many things in life, it’s not the size that matters!)

We hope some of you have enjoyed this little trip down Online Clock Memory Lane.

We love OnlineClock.net and we love reminiscing about how we got started!

And to all our friends at GenBeta, we say: Gracias!

Tags: alarma, clock history, online alarm clock history, online clock, online clock blog, online clock history, onlineclock, onlineclock.net, reloj, reloj con alarma