Over the past 5 years Placebo Extreme has had plenty of recognition worldwide and we�ve received some fantastic feedback from Placebo fans all over the world. we�ve even been mentioned on the XFM London radio station.
Seen as though it�s 5 years, a milestone for Placebo Extreme we�re going to look back over the past 5 years and remember some of our highlights and good memories.
Placebo Extreme was first launched on February 21st 2003. It was during my half term break from college that I decided to challenge myself and attempt to build a website. I had no idea what to do or even where to start and a domain name meant nothing to me. It was a complete learning experience for me as everything you see on Placebo Extreme has been done single handed by just me. So over the years I�ve learnt more about web design and continued to improve Placebo Extreme.
When I first launched the site it was just a small, basic, 5 page website. When we first launched the site was originally called Second Sight. As the months went on and second sight grew and grew and bit by bit new pages were appearing on the site.
In May 2003 I created the This Picture forum to accompany the main website. We quickly attracted plenty of members and now 5 years on our forum is still online with a group of regular members and new members are always signing up.
By 2005 Second Sight had grown dramatically and we I was struggling to keep the site running with enough hosting space. So over the summer of 2005 the site was offline while we acquired more hosting space and completely re-designed the website. In September 2005 I re-launched the site as Placebo Extreme with a new name and cool new look. The re-launch was successful and I noticed we was attracting more visitors from some new countries.
In 2007 I decided that Placebo Extreme needed a re-design, it was beginning to look plain and needed a new lease of life. So I took two months re-designing Placebo Extreme and re-launched in June 2007. Within 5 hours of being back online Placebo Extreme had received over 115 hits from over 23 different countries including: Austria, Finland, UK, USA, Australia, Russia,
South Korea, South America, Israel and many more.
Now let�s take a look back at some of our key highlights from over the past 5 years
2003 was a good year for Placebo Extreme. We launched in February 2003 just weeks before Placebo released �The Bitter End� as a single followed by their new album �Sleeping With Ghosts�
Placebo toured extensively in 2003 and Placebo Extreme was there for many of the stand-out performances:
Brighton Concorde II March 9th
London Astoria March 10th
Reading Festival 2003
Omnisport De Bercy October 18th 2003.
In March 2003 I also went along to see Placebo appear on the TV show Re:covered. We had a fantastic time that day and managed to meet all the boys again for a second time in the same week.
2004.
2004 was another good year for Placebo Extreme. It was during 2004 that we started the Placebo fan club petition campaigning for a new fan club after the closure of the Silver Rocket Placebo fan club. We received over 2000 signatures on our petition and handed it into Placebo�s management but unfortunately nothing ever became of it. The petition is still running online and still collecting signatures.
In September 2004 I received an email from a statistics website informing me that Placebo Extreme had been the most viewed music website in China for the month. This was a huge achievement for Placebo Extreme, at the time I didn�t realise the site was being viewed in so many countries.
Again during 2004 Placebo Extreme was at many of the stand out performances including the April dates at Brixton Academy and of course the spectacular Wembley show in November 2004.
In 2005 we saw many spectacular events unfold with Placebo. In the Spring of 2005 Placebo toured South America Extensively and we had some fans over there sending us their experiences of the tour and commenting on how fantastic the performances had been.
In July 2005 Placebo appeared in the Live 8 concert in Paris. Unfortunately Placebo Extreme couldn�t be there for the show but watched on the live webcams instead.
Over the summer of 2005 Placebo Extreme was being re-designed and later re-launched as Placebo Extreme,
2006
In 2006 Placebo came back with their latest release �Meds� personally I loved the album and still do, it�s great to see Placebo keep improving with every album. In the weeks before the release of �Meds� Placebo Extreme launched the �Anti Download� campaign to encourage Placebo fans to wait for the release date and purchase the album legally rather then illegally downloading the album early. This is a campaign that Placebo Extreme will continue to run before all future Placebo releases.
In December 2006 our forums suffered a server error. The forum suddenly went offline without any warning leaving me and members confused, when the board finally came back online I noticed that we�d lost a significant amount of our data including topics, photo�s and some members, members account were also affected causing some to re-register. Despite my best efforts I couldn�t recover much of the data but managed to recover some posts and topics.
2007
Through to 2007 and Placebo Extreme was re-designed again, Placebo Extreme re-launched in June 2007 and ever since has attracted more visitors and new members to our forum.
We continued to report on any latest Placebo news including some gig reviews and a set of photo�s kindly donated to us by one of our members.
2007 saw Placebo going from strength to strength, they appeared on the �Projekt Revolution� tour in USA which hopefully attracted some new attention and fans towards the band.
Now we�re in 2008 and we look to the future. I hope that in another 5 years time I�ll still be online writing another article on the site. I�m eagerly looking forward to Placebo releasing their next album, I know it�s going to be another fantastic album, I have every faith in them that they won�t disappoint their fans, starting another world tour and getting more successful then they already are.
So until then we sit tight and await patiently for any news on the new album and tour and once we hear news it�ll be straight on the Placebo Extreme.
For now that just leaves me to say once again a HUGE thank you to everyone who has helped make Placebo Extreme the site it is today. I�d especially like to thank Placebo for making the music that inspires us and for being who they are.
Until Next Time.
Take Care
Miki xx