PinoyExchange
Encyclopedia
Pinoy Exchange is a Filipino online message board community founded by Dr. Michael Nolledo a.k.a. "batanguliran" with help from close family members on July 12, 1999. As of September 15, 2010, PEX has 49,248,745 posts made by 391,809 members, making it the largest message board in the country by far.
a.k.a. Nix, his brother-in-law Marco Lucena a.k.a. marco (who was later replaced by Michael Palacios a.k.a. Mikoid as lead designer and technical consultant), and most importantly his nephew Jude Turcuato a.k.a. Kaboom! who helped generate interest by plugging the forum during televised UAAP basketball games in which he worked as a commentator
.
Although the forum reached 2,000 members before the turn of the century it was not until Sprite
's 2001 ad campaign that PEX enjoyed its highest exposure. As a result of the rapid increase in traffic, PEX upgraded its dated, CGI
-based Ultimate Bulletin Board software to the more robust PHP
-powered VBulletin
and introduced "Premium Packages" in which subscribers gain added features.
although there have been many local Internet forums that have attempted to compete with PEX through the years such as the short-lived Rebelde who paid members for their contributions.
Other gripes concern features that are found in other message boards such as avatars
and signatures
that were available at one point but subsequently removed due to nagging bandwidth
issues. To address this, PEX introduced PEX Plus in 2001 that allows subscribers to make use of the aforementioned features in addition to search capabilities (a feature open to normal users nowadays) and exclusion from "server busy" messages; the service is currently in hiatus.
History
PEX was originally conceptualized by the New Jersey-based Dr. Michael Nolledo as an outlet for Filipinos to discuss and debate local issues. Hindered by geographical limitations, Michael enlisted the help of his brother Nix NolledoNix Nolledo
Nico Jose "Nix" Nolledo is a Filipino entrepreneur who is presently CEO of Xurpas Inc, one of the largest value added service providers in the Philippines...
a.k.a. Nix, his brother-in-law Marco Lucena a.k.a. marco (who was later replaced by Michael Palacios a.k.a. Mikoid as lead designer and technical consultant), and most importantly his nephew Jude Turcuato a.k.a. Kaboom! who helped generate interest by plugging the forum during televised UAAP basketball games in which he worked as a commentator
Sportscaster
In sports broadcasting, a commentator gives a running commentary of a game or event in real time, usually during a live broadcast. The comments are normally a voiceover, with the sounds of the action and spectators also heard in the background. In the case of television commentary, the commentator...
.
Although the forum reached 2,000 members before the turn of the century it was not until Sprite
Sprite (soft drink)
Sprite is a transparent, lemon-lime flavored , caffeine free soft drink, produced by the Coca-Cola Company. It was introduced in the United States in 1961. This was Coke's response to the popularity of 7 Up, which had begun as "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda" in 1929...
's 2001 ad campaign that PEX enjoyed its highest exposure. As a result of the rapid increase in traffic, PEX upgraded its dated, CGI
Common Gateway Interface
The Common Gateway Interface is a standard method for web servers software to delegate the generation of web pages to executable files...
-based Ultimate Bulletin Board software to the more robust PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
-powered VBulletin
VBulletin
vBulletin is a proprietary Internet forum software produced by Jelsoft Enterprises and vBulletin Solutions, both subsidiaries of Internet Brands. It is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database server.-History:...
and introduced "Premium Packages" in which subscribers gain added features.
Controversy
\ places advertisements (occasionally Flash-based) in various parts of the board in order to pay for their hosting bills, a fact that can't be underscored enough by constant "server busy" messages and downtime. Unfortunately this move elicited scorn from a select few who equated the ad-placements to greed and monopolyMonopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
although there have been many local Internet forums that have attempted to compete with PEX through the years such as the short-lived Rebelde who paid members for their contributions.
Other gripes concern features that are found in other message boards such as avatars
Avatar (computing)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
and signatures
Signature block
A signature block is a block of text automatically appended at the bottom of an e-mail message, Usenet article, or forum post. This has the effect of "signing off" the message and in a reply message of indicating that no more response follows...
that were available at one point but subsequently removed due to nagging bandwidth
Bandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
issues. To address this, PEX introduced PEX Plus in 2001 that allows subscribers to make use of the aforementioned features in addition to search capabilities (a feature open to normal users nowadays) and exclusion from "server busy" messages; the service is currently in hiatus.