COASTER-net (then COASTERnet) opens for the first time on August 1st, 1998 as a small, text-only page hosted by Expage.com. Several features are started: including the Park Gallery, the Coaster Quiz, the Defunct section of the Special Listings, along with links to pages featuring construction pictures for 1999 coasters.

On November 22nd, the site recieves its first revamping and improvements. Only several clicks a day are averaged.

For the first anniversary of COASTER-net, the site reopens at its new host, Angelfire.com, and receives a new look vaguely resembling the current site, with left-hand navigation. What is now known as the Ride Gallery is introduced featuring coasters only as the Coaster Gallery, RollerCoaster Tycoon Downloads are added, and a section with links to coaster videos is also added. The daily clicks now average 40-50.

Danimation.com offers to host COASTER-net several months later as part of their affiliate community and the site begins to take off, with daily visitors climbing into the hundreds.

At the turn of the new century, a new version of COASTER-net is released, with a number of noticable changes including the first right-hand content tables on the site.

August 1st of that year marks the release of more improvements. A new Photo Galleries section is released with COASTER-net's first exclusive galleries of pictures, although at this time it was separate from the Park Gallery. Also, Site Info and Rare Ride Info (which would later become part of the Special Listings) are introduced to the site.

Once again, New Years marks the release of a new version of the site, COASTER-net 2001. A new feature contains sections that would later become Special Listings along with the already vastly-growing Defunct Coaster Index. Custom graphics are first used on the site. The number of daily hits reaches 400.

In late 2001, Danimation.com cancels its hosting program and on October 12, COASTER-net finds a new home at CoasterBuzz.com.

For the new year, a new NoLimits section is released to go along with the RCT Downloads.

In mid-2002, CoasterBuzz cancels hosting, but COASTER-net reopens once again as a hosted site on another coaster-related site, Megacoasters.com. At this time, the domain name COASTER-net.com is purchased, and visitors are redirected to the pages hosted on Megacoasters.

For COASTER-net Version 4 on August 1st, COASTER-net makes its second-to-last move to another free host, Coasterdom.com. At this time, the Discussion Forums are released and by the end of the year, nearly fifty members had joined.

COASTER-net Version 5 celebrates the fifth anniversary of COASTER-net on the web and contains several new features. The Special Listings receives four new sections for Record Holders, Reworked Rides, Ride Debuts, and the Ride Naming feature. The Site Info & Staff section is also added to the site. Moving off of Coasterdom.com, Thrillnetwork.com becomes our final free host.

Our two goals for the year are 150 pages in the Ride Gallery, and 20,000 posts in the forums, both of which were reached and passed just before the end of 2003.

August 1st, 2004 marked the release of COASTER-net Version 6, with improvments all around and minor changes to the layout, and vast behind-the-scenes improvments to make updates quicker for the Staff, including an automated Coaster Quiz. A new Special Listings is introduced, the Ride Deaths listings, along with the Site Search and other conveniences around the site.

Sections continued their growth, with the Ride Gallery passing 200 pages.

Work on COASTER-net in 2005 focused on improving upon the site throughout the year and expanding COASTER-net beyond simply the website. On January 10th, we announced the acquisition of the Coaster Crew club founded by Clint Novak four and a half years prior. The same day as the Coaster Crew launch, Clint began his daily theme park news show In the Loop with his radio expertise to bring coaster enthusiasts updates in a new type of format.

Throughout the summer, Coaster Crew hosted their first events in conjunction with COASTER-net, including an annual Cedar Point trip and July 6th Paramount's Kings Dominion event. On July 11th, COASTER-net made our first appearance on international cable news in a segment for the FOX News Channel. Meanwhile, Clint continued lengthening and improving his show. However, several months later, Clint made the decision to leave the site for personal reasons.

Focusing on expanding COASTER-net beyond the internet, president Devin Olson began his first book on July 10th, Tracking the Thrills, as a guide to the top fifty amusement parks in North America. On December 9th, we launched our Affiliate Sites section in order to share some of the best thrills of the web outside of the COASTER-net realm. The next day, we unveiled our "Save Mr. Six" campaign in support of Six Flags' ever-popular mascot.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, the C-net Gear section debuted as our official store, featuring a monthly calendar dubbed Months of Mayhem as our first publication along with our first merchandise. 2005 Concluded, by far, as COASTER-net's most successful season yet, with well over 66 million hits.

2006 Began with a new focus on continuing the strengthen COASTER-net as the most comprehensive, reliable source for exclusive news articles pertaining to amusement parks. The Rumors & Reports section was eliminated and staff shifted to features and news writing instead.

This spring, Tracking the Thrills will ship, with many more projects of larger and larger scale in store for the year ahead at COASTER-net.

A year of transition and a lot of work done behind the scenes. Much of the work to get our new look and additional features for our website was done during 2010.

We spent nearly a full year updating our Ride Gallery and Park Gallery articles (and we're still working on them) our Special Listings Database, and working to bring you the best Staff Members that would give you the best quality of work available.

It was in 2010 that we re-released our Coaster Calendars and our new "Quit Dreaming, Start Screaming" line of merchandise, starting with COASTER-net T-shirts in both Men's and Women's sizes from Small to XXL. We also started offering our Coaster Posters for the first time, as started to keep full-resolution photos on our server for use in production of professional-quality prints (minimum 200 dpi, but most everything is 300 dpi or better).

We began officially forming our first partnerships with Devin Olson Media for our Advertising, Marketing, Video Production and Editing, and Graphics Design; JCN-M Productions for additional work with Graphics design (some site announcement images that needed to be designed by hand); and CPF Ride Industries (For those who wanted signatures made for them).

Some changes also occurred at the Site Leadership Level as we re-introduced the Directors and started handing off responsibilities of department and oversight to qualified team members.

Ryan Shrout: Staff Manager & Director of Technical Writing (he is also in charge of Sales & Marketing, Public Relations, and our Productions like our Newsletter)

Brandon Bushman: Director of News, Blogs & Editorials, Director of Social Media & Trivia (official title is Editor-in-Chief)

Tyler Carlton: Director of Downloads & Special Listings

Mike Strobel: Director of Forum Management & Moderation

Kevin Dice also gets honorable mention here for all of his hard work on the HTML tutorials he did as well as helping maintain the Photo Galleries, the scripts he wrote to help make our work easy for us, and the work he continues to do as a Technical Adviser.

Matthew Rydzik officially came back on staff and was put in charge of the v12 update and was given charge over all of the Technical Directors. The Technical Directors are the ones that handle the raw code for the site, help fix bugs, and help with doing our beta testing so that less bugs occur.

If you remember something significant from 2010 that was not mentioned, please contact Daniel Westfall so that it can be added.

One of our biggest years ever! COASTER-net.com came out with a new identity, a new look, and some new look. In the past we were known only as "Your Guide to Ride on the Wild Side," but now, we now have taken our new "Quit Dreaming, Start Screaming" and incorporated it into everything we do and produce.

One of our biggest partnerships formed back in March and was announced officially in April as we started to officially sponsor Theme Park Coaster Club (TPCC) and they became the official club of COASTER-net.com and its affiliates. This brought Ryan Newton, the Founder and Owner of TPCC onto our staff as our Club President and Activities Director. Accessing TPCC's website once you are here is easy. just got to coaster-net.com/club.

We've also organized partnership with other companies to bring you the best in product design and Media Coverage. Here's a list of our current affiliates and partners (in no particular order):

• Devin Olson Media
• Theme Park Coaster Club
• Chop Dawg Studios
• Darien Lake Online
• Six Flags Online
• Coaster Warriors
• Midwest Thrills
• Coaster Source
• Specific Pixel
• The Coastin' East Amusement Park Podcast
• The Inversion Podcast
• Coasterpedia
• JCN-M Productions
• CPF Ride Industries

If we somehow missed one of our partners or affiliates or you are interested in becoming a partner or affiliate, please contact Daniel Westfall on the forums.

We've got lots more in store for you all for this year. V12 (our new look for the website) isn't done yet, and we've got some products in store for you.

This was an exciting (and somewhat scary) year for us a COASTER-net, as we decided together that it was time for a transition to new ownership and management of the site. Devin Olson (Owner of Devin Olson Media and Founder of COASTER-net.com) decided it was time to hand over the reigns of daily operation of the site to Daniel Westfall and Matthew Rydzik. A lot of this happened behind the scenes until the summer when we felt it was time to make the official announcement.

Speaking of scary, 2012 was year that COASTER-net decided to delve into the realm of Halloween Haunts by partnering with HauntTour.net. We hope to continue to work with HauntTour for many years to come.

2012 was also the year for podcasts for COASTER-net. We've always been friends with The Coastin' East Amusement Park Podcast, and we've officially invited them to be a part of the COASTER-net "family." We added two other podcasts to our family this year as well when COASTER-net became owner of both The Inversion Podcast and The Ohio Mega-G (OMG) Coaster Podcast.

We've added more than just podcasts this year though. COASTER-net has also been adding several affiliates. We'll be adding a full listing to our site in the near future. As well as our Affiliates and our Podcasts we are also expanding our "family" by helping Theme Park Universe reorganize and come back with a new mission and vision to provide you with the best coverage of Flat Rides, Shows, Events, Food, and everything else that's in your favorite coaster parks besides the coasters. But wait, there's more!!!! Can it be that the COASTER-net Community actually likes WATER PARKS?!?!!?! Yes, through an experiment in this year's Coaster Draft, we found out that our Community loves water parks as well as coaster parks. So we've decided to begin development of a new site 100% dedicated to water parks.

That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our new "network" and "family," and we know all of them will want to talk to each and share information, so we have added a special group on Facebook for all of our friends from our sites and other to communicate called The Theme Park & Coaster Consortium. Observant members probably realize this shortens to TPCC which will also be the official Club of all these new sites.

We've also had a lot of exciting stuff happening on our site also with contests, the addition of new team of Correspondents to help us cover the West Coast and other areas beyond the reach of our regular staff, the addition of lots of new photos and trip reports, and the return of the Elders to a position of honor and prestige in the COASTER-net Community.

That's right! 2012 was also the year that the Elders made a comeback. We're very excited to see our Elders reinvigorated and feeling their new potential as they reach out to our staff and members in some new and exciting ways through mentorship, discipleship, and leadership training. Other Elders have decided they also want their voice to be heard through our Blogs and have signed up to help the Community that way, and we look forward to hearing from them. Thanks to all those participating and to all the Elders for their years of service and dedication to the COASTER-net Community.

As many of you see, 2012 was the year of Partnerships as COASTER-net solidified and grew its partnerships with Theme Park Coaster Club, Theme Park Universe and our existing podcasts.

In a similar way, 2013 is all about our Affiliates Program and expanding our reach by both cooperation and development. Where local or regional fansites exist (especially news sites) we plan on working with them to form a wide network of local, regional and national media, making COASTER-net and its family members one of the largest news outlets in the theme park industry.

In addition to our News, our Affiliates are also helping us grow our Club, as each affiliate will help with hosting local meet-ups and events, and many of them are also joining us in selling and promoting memberships to Theme Park Coaster Club. A special Thank You to our newest TPCC partner, Theme Park Central. You can now access all your TPCC discounts through COASTER-net, Theme Park Universe or Theme Park Central.

Stay tuned as we bring you additional information on our new Affiliates that join us throughout this year. We are VERY excited about the potential that is there.