Time goes so quick! It's been exactly 1 year since Donut Plains launched on August 11, 2009! Throughout that time, so much has happened on the site and for all those involved with it. As a site we've grown a lot in the last year and have reached all kinds of new heights. Donut Plains is on its way to a very strong future, and with everything all set up now, we hope to have even a better year next year! But that's in the future, so for now, let's look back on everything that has happened to and with Donut Plains in year 1!

The Year in Review!

Donut Plains launched on August 9, 2009, but was really up on the 11th which is what we consider to be the official launch date of the site. The 9th was just when the URL was bought, not when we actually had the main site up and read for viewing! But we got the site up quickly after, so everything was all good, and we started to take in visitors on the 11th! Of course, no one really knew us, so we were just showing it off to friends and people we knew online. After all, we needed to get lots of feedback on how it was!

The more we showed it to people, the more we thought we had something special here. People really liked the initial design that incorporated a lot of green with a Super Mario Bros. 2 theme! We really didn't have the Smb2 theme in mind right as we created it, but hey, we got BB who loves Smb2 so it was a good fit. And Sm had never created a Super Mario Bros. 2 theme before, so we chose it to go along with the green layout!

We started to add content right away! JJ and Sm started to work on game guides right away while BB started to write out Character Profiles! Our first content update featured over 20 new pages! The Secret Pages, which became very popular immediately, were added shortly after. The site got off to quite a good start in the first few weeks, especially with the addition of the Message Board that got up to a thousand posts the first week or so!

Unfortunately, after the first month we hit a rough spot. For a long while - about 3 month time, very little or no content was added at all. Sm took somewhat of an unofficial leave from the site, and pretty much all 3 of our personal lives were just a bit more important at the time. None of us will really hide it that the site slipped in the time and we should've done more, but it is what it is in the end. We all recognized it during the time and promised eachother and the viewers of the site to do a better job in the future.

So, that's what we did! After the lull that was just too long, we all got it back into gear and then found an extra one. In fairness, during that time the Message Board remained active and we got lots of links and such, but content was slow. But as of December 2009, we started to add content regularly once again. KeyBlade, who's Sm's brother, joined the staff that month and created the Ringtones section which was surprisingly more popular than we initially thought. KB started to handle some media, and to this day works behind the scenes and helps with the site mainly by assisting Sm.

After the new year, we got 2010 off to a much better and needed start. Ok, we didn't. January had some content but again wasn't that much. But that's only because we really hit hard in February with all kinds of good things. February finally saw the return of numerous updates and a lot of content, and this is basically when Donut Plains was restarted and is what it is today. February marked our comeback.

During that month, lots of things happened. For one, we had our single largest update ever - even until this day. DP totally expanded the site to cover the extended Mario universe! We added the Donkey Kong and Wario series to our coverage, 'cause after all, they are all usually considered to be sub-series of the Mario series due to their ties. We also added huge guides like the Mario Kart Wii Characters Guide and some other ones. Lots of Super Mario Galaxy 2 stuff came out too, and we always posted the latest screens and trailers!

March was a good month with updates and the Super Smash Bros. Brawl Tier List was written up - the official one and our own version, which was nice. April saw some new things come to the site. Setzer, a Message Board member, joined DP as a new staff member and was the first staff member to join that was out of house - meaning, the few of us didn't know him before we took him aboard. Along with Setzer, our official YouTube Channel was launched, and the number of images to the site increased exponentially to over 1000 total!

The next major event was in May of this year. We added a Facebook page, which is just something extra to have, but it was a nice new feature. But the major thing was that Donut Plains started to welcome viewers from Super Mario Legacy, which was another site ran by Super Mallow a while ago. This really increased the amount of people we had viewing the site, so it was a really good boost for us. It also helped out the Message Board gain some new members, and that was really good for the activity.

June was a really good month for Donut Plains. We received a boost in pretty much everything: visits, Message Board activity, site content, etc. But the highlight of the month came on the 22nd when we updated the site with a teaser image called "Sprinkles." Ok, we know, the name is kinda out there, but the reason it was so good is because it meant something big was coming to the site. It was a new layout, completely redesigned in terms of looks, but also there was a lot of new stuff added, like a Screenshot index, Artwork index, etc.

The new version with all that stuff came out on July 2, so it was only like 10 days after it was announced since we had been working on it so much before. Sprinkles came out and was probably our most successful thing yet. All kinds of new stuff was added to the site. The Navigation was completely different and new and much easier to use, and the horizontal navigation gave it a really nice touch too. Pretty much ever since then we've been on an absolute tear, providing all kinds of new and in depth content that has improved the site so much.

And that pretty much brings us to today. It's been a very solid year after a bit of a rough start, but we think everyone can see now that we're real and on our way to becoming a top notch Mario site. That is our only goal, and we plan to be the very best. We will not fail - it's not an option for us. Our staff is very dedicated to this. We love Mario and want to cover everything we can about the greatest video game icon out there.

All of us would like to thank the fans for visiting the site over the last year. We know, it's about as cliche as it can get, but really, if it weren't you we can't be doing what we do. We always get thrilled when fans talk with us on the board or when we get comments and suggestions to better the site, and really, fan interaction is what really makes the site unique and great. Anyone can make a Mario site, but very few can find their way to becoming a special one, and it's always the fans that make that experience the best.

Thank you for the support and fandom. Thank you for the criticism to make us better. Thank you for making the board a great place to be at and a great community. Thank you for everything.

Our Allies

As part of this, I'd like to thank all of our ally sites for their support and their help. You should check all of them out because they are also great sites

Our Affiliates

We also want to thank our affiliates, who are equally as important and who you should also give a look at because they have amazing sites too!

Thanks for the great year! Here's hoping Year 2 is even better!

-Super Mallow, Baby Bros., JonnyJinx, KeyBlade, Setzer, and Bradii!!