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Amezou Link
Amezou Link (あめぞうリンク, Amezō Rinku), or Amezou (あめぞう), was a Japanese website set up by “Amezou” (あめぞう) on August 5, 1997. It started out as a link collection page, but later became known for its bulletin board. Eventually, it was declared dead by December 30, 1999.
History
On August 5, 1997, Amezou had launched Amezou Link which hosted a link collection page for WareZ and stuff. Shortly after server relocation on March 19, 1998, a bulletin board was set up and it used the usual MiniBBS script. However, when Ayashii World shut down on September 3, 1998, he switched to the ResBBS script distributed by “Try The Homepage” on September 6, 1998 and the users started pouring in.
The popularity is often attributed to how the boards were easy to use and how it first introduced the “thread float-type bulletin board” format to the Japanese internet.1) It was even featured on Internet Watch.2) At the time, Amezou Link was considered the center of the internet until May 1999. Eventually, the website couldn't handle how many users were using their boards and the server load was awful.
On May 30, 1999, Hiroyuki launches 2channel as a “second channel” to Amezou Link.3) It was a refuge site, but their servers were more stable. After this, Amezou's servers conveniently began dying so the “Toshiba Claimer” case moved to 2channel, and then Amezou suspiciously took down their “Whistleblowing” board.4)5) Eventually, it was clear that Amezou was under some pressure,6) which upset the free speech crowd.
Afterwards, it started deteriorating into vandalism and not much was done to save it. Oddly enough, Amezou Link forbid posting “dead” (死ね, shine), so people started saying “shine” (氏ね) instead. It's presumed that Amezou had abandoned his website by November 1999, then allowed it to die sometime before 2000 with the popular guess being around December 30, 1999.7)
Derivatives
There isn't much to write about, so I can't put much in this section.
See also
- 1ch.TV - Amezou was involved, but he didn't really play a big part and vanished.
- Ameza Net IV (Amezor) - The second network to Amezou.
External links
- Amezou Link -Type 0- - This holds the largest list of Amezou related websites.
- Amezou on Niconico Encyclopedia
- Amezou on 2channel's Wiki
- Amezou on Japanese Wikipedia - It looks like the “History” section sorta blends the original's history with the history of its successors, so keep that in mind.