The same can be said for myspacepros - but its dedicated to myspace webmasters - who own myspace sites. So, the question remains, are niche-based webmaster forums the way to go now - in order to compete with the big dogs, or can one still manage to run a massive webmaster community - even though running a webmasters-based community is such a competitive market? We’ll let you guys decide this one.

So, you don’t believe us? As of this writing - and we believe that these stats will double by the end of the year, Virtual pet list currently has 7,352 threads, 92,010 posts, and 2,541 members. So, we’re working hard this year - just like last year, and we hope this year won’t have any downtime - or database crashes like 2007 endured, but we believe, with a new year, brings many changes - and we hope to increase our overhaul activity, and reach even wider audiences.

With the talks of Neopets’ (Neostudios) in the works - and with that rumored to happen at the end of the year - we will be the #1 site on the web bringing users updates to all neostudious - changes and such, so stay tuned for that.

So, what’s going to happen to Virtual pet list in 2008? Well, my vision has always been creating a great community - and a great portal - so hopefully this year will be our greatest ever. We hope to reshape the community, and bring many different things - such as, a blog for the main site - with updates, news, rumors, and interviews surrounding our current niche. Hopefully we can branch off - and reach different niches, all within one domain name. But without the staff members to push our community to the limits, it can’t be done, but currently with our high-profile staff members, we believe our vision can be made possible - and bring our users to change. But without our active members & supporters, change may be hard, but we’re all for it.

We’re going to try our best to be more active, and promote our site to the masses - and hopefully strike more partnerships - with bigger profile sites in our niche, such as, other neopets cheating sites - or neopets fansites that are dedicated to one virtual pet site - and that’s Neopets, however, with partnerships, bring change, and with partnerships, we’ll be able to attract the neopets users to our users - which means, more users for all the virtual pet site owners - but of course, the drama needs to stop - and the owners need to come together and be nicer to one another, and not strive to attention whores. We agree with Tezeti who has said multiple times that “pet games should not be a competitive industry”, but instead be more of a fun - industry, where users come together and share ideas, and help one other succeed.

But, without the force trying to stop the drama, and making the community come together, it may be tough, but change is coming, and we’re the people to bring change. Not, the people who always vision change, but never do, no, no, that’s not us. We’re risk-takers, and if we say something is to be done, then we’ll do it.

So, of course, you guys will possible see a new era on Virtual pet list real soon - such as, the main site coming back, with a ton of changes - and instead of directories, everything will be blog-powered, and users can submit comments that every single pet site listed.

Now let’s look back on Whateverlife’s success - and what made the site popular. about whateverlife

One day, I was working on my website (when I just had a personal portfolio and basic graphics/tutorial website), and I decided that I enjoyed created Myspace.com layouts (after all of my friends begged for custom ones!!!). After that, few people used them, but I began to see more and more visitors popping onto my website. I was shocked, and still continued to create layouts. Ever since then, I’ve fallen in love with the possibilities in designing and coding! So fun!

The myspace layouts that Whateverlife currently offers all myspace users - are what made Ashley’s site so popular, but what about generators and such? She doesn’t offer them really - even though other myspace sites have grown popular because of them.

So, what do you guys think has hurt Whateverlife’s traffic over the past few months? The ads? Not a whole lot of new content? Give us your reason.

So, how did you guys do in December?

2: Marapets should have the following goals in mind for the new year:
peak at over 5,000 online, have over 5 million users, and be one of the largest pet sites in the new year (it is already, but is rarely talked about).

3: Subeta should have the following goals in mind for 2008:
peak at over 3,000 - 5,000 users online, have over 350,000 users and surpass Marapets in terms of activity.

So, the new year as just begin and we’ve only posted goals for 3 of the pet sites that we think should work on a few goals this year. Are we biased? We don’t think so, these pet sites are just the ones that we favor the most - and love to talk about.

So, do you think Subeta can surpass Marapets in the next year - or will the talk of their recode continue to be their hype? Their recode has recently gone live, on a test server, and is currently in alpha or beta testing for their users, so we should see it go live on the main site soon.

Marapets & Subeta both have had its fair share of publicity in 2007 - with the advertisements being the main talk of Mara, and the longcat + staff firings for Subeta - 2008 is looking pretty good for both of these games (will Mara finally get better art in 08?). But look at the bright side, without the bad & good publicity for both Marapets & Subeta, users probably wouldn’t join - because publicity helps people decide whether or not to join the site - because if its boring, they won’t join.

So, was 2007 a good or bad year for Marapets & Subeta? Why was it good? Why was it bad? You tell us.

As of December 26, 2007, Marapetshas 2,669,198 players.. Marapets currently peaks at around 2,500 - 3,000 users.
As of December 26, 2007, Subeta currently has 188,576 registered users and currently peaks at around 800 - 1,000 users.

Is Subeta showing Mara that a pet site can grow without a huge advertising campaign - which Marapets has done multiple times this year? Marapets has spent at least $5,000 on advertising campaigns this year - and will probably launch more in the new year. Why does Subeta continue to grow without much advertising from its staff members? Are the users promoting or? Let us know.

Let’s not forget about the small pet sites. Rescreatu has been growing pretty fast ever since it launched last year - and celebrate its first milestone this year, 20,000 users. Its now growing at a steady 100 - 200 new users a day and is peaking at 100 - 200 users online. As growth has been steady for Rescreatu, a lot of users have been going around saying that they don’t have a lot of features, however; the main attraction of Rescreatu is their find a egg - and create a pet feature - which continues to bring the users back.

Misticpets finally opened to the public, and as 3,600 members as of today - and currently peaks at 20 - 50 users online. Not bad for being opened for a month or two, eh?

Ichumon recently opened up a week or two ago as well - and currently has 300+ members and peaks at 20 - 30 users online. They’re going pretty good if I do say so myself.

Another bad year for Zetapets though, they continue to peak at 100 - 150 users online - without any major updates, however; Tigress continues to say that v3 will be out by next year. Do you believe it? Zetapets currently has 528,812 registered users.

On a side note, we still believe 2007 was a bad year for pet sites and we hope 2008 is a lot better.

So, if your earnings have been sucking throughout December - how much of a decrease was it? Did your earnings drop 50%?

I wish I could give a thumbs up, but I’m really disappointed with the new membership thing. I would WAY rather have ads than have to pay for something that we used to be able to get. I don’t know how appealing this will be to me anymore. I love you guys for giving me a great 3 years on the site, but some of these changes are not something I’m happy with. Hopefully I’ll be able to adjust, but I know that I spent SO much time on the discussion board reading over everyone’s ideas, and now I can’t do that. :/

The site looks nice and I can really understand why you did things the way you did them. I guess just after five years here I’m a little disappointed in the membership. I really won’t be able to afford that per month to continue accessing the boards I did before and fear I’ll lose a lot of the friends I have here because of it. I sort of feel like I’ve been told that the few credits I was able to buy to access what was important to me just wasn’t good enough.

While I like most of the changes, I do have a probem with the membership charges. I had already paid in for over 3 months on the Poco21 board and for the animated avatars, but now I’m going to have to pay in 50 credits for access for a month? That doesn’t seem fair to me. I might be willing to pay a little more for access, but going from 3 credits a month for Poco21 to 50 is excessive to say the least.

Superb graphics, looks great. Good work. What I really don’t understand is this, though: ‘Members Only Server Access - The ultimate benefit. Members are allowed to log into members only servers. These servers have limited access and are expanded as more members join up. Your access is faster than it is on the Public Servers.’ — So, if you are a person that can’t donate $5 a month (or $60 annually), you must stay on the public server. And not the member server, which is faster. Does this affect restocking? For me, restocking is what has kept me on PP so long and kept me dedicated. Sounds like members have an advantage over nonmembers at making pbs, since they’ll be on the faster server, thus having a quicker restock time, thus making more pbs, which doesn’t sound very fair. However, I might be misanalyzing it - hope I’m wrong

Those are just 4 comments posted by their users - and if you’d like to read more, then check out their latest post announcing the new Powerpets which can be located at their Small updates.

So, the question remains - do you guys like the new Powerpets or do you hate it? Tell us why.

So, what happens when a pet site in our niche ranks for games? Well, lots of members and continued domination of the niche, of course, and if anyone wants to surpass Marapets for the games ranking, then you better have some money to spend - on promotion. We don’t know how Marapets did it, but if you have any tips, or advice, on how Marapets did it, then please do share your knowledge with us - as we’re as clueless as you are when it comes down to this great keyword that Marapets ranks for.

On a side note: How much traffic do you think Marapets is receiving from the “games” keyword? 50,000 daily uniques? 100,000 daily uniques? More? Let us know!

On a good note, the new Powerpets is tentatively scheduled for Friday, December 21st. As mentioned in previous editions, if we go live on the 21st, we will be closing the site down on the day before (20th). Good time for all you pokies to get your last minute Christmas shopping done!

On a side note last week’s issue of the power press will be the last edition ever:

This will be the final edition of the Power Press. Any news or updates will be posted in the Site Updates. Nora’s Review and Dr. Sayahh will still be available but located in a different area of the site. We will relay that information to you when it becomes available. The site helper award will also still be available so please, don’t stop helping your fellow citizens.

Will you guys miss the power press?