The origination of www.bigbluegill.com

[Bruce Condello]

www.bigbluegill.com was founded by Bruce Condello and Aaron Matos during the March Madness tournament of 2008.  On March 20, 2008, Bruce was watching an NCAA tournament basketball game from his home, and was talking by text to Aaron, when Aaron suggested a website dedicated to raising and catching bluegill.  Aaron did the work of identifying available domain names, and Bruce made the final decision to go with www.bigbluegill.com.  Aaron chose Ning.com as the web format, and purchased the domain name and started the site.  All of this took place over the course of two hours.  Aaron told Bruce, "Start adding content", and Bruce uploaded photo files, and wrote a few blogs over the next several days.  One of the original and primary intents, which is still true today, was to divert some traffic to www.pondboss.com, which was founded by world renowned pond and lake manager, Bob Lusk.  Pond Boss forums was, and still is, one of the most successful forums on the web today.  We still strive to not be a pond management site here, and to make sure that folks who want to manage their ponds and lakes go to the real experts at Pond Boss.

www.bigbluegill.com</a>">http://www.bigbluegill.com">www.bigbluegill.com</a>;. Aaron chose Ning.com as the web format, and purchased the domain name and started the site. All of this took place over the course of two hours. Aaron told Bruce, "Start adding content", and Bruce uploaded photo files, and wrote a few blogs over the next several days. One of the original and primary intents, which is still true today, was to divert some traffic to <a href="www.pondboss.com</a>">http://www.pondboss.com">www.pondboss.com</a>;, which was founded by world renowned pond and lake manager, Bob Lusk. Pond Boss forums was, and still is, one of the most successful forums on the web today. We still strive to not be a pond management site here, and to make sure that folks who want to manage their ponds and lakes go to the real experts at Pond Boss.</p> <p>It was to everybody's surprise after a few days that people actually started joining this site. They seemed to be attracted to the light-hearted "go have some fun" attitude of the early members. One thing that has kept this site strong is the very strong set of rules that allow for no bashing of other members, or their beliefs, or their methods. There are no second chances on BBG. If you break a rule, you are not given a warning, you are not given a second chance and you are not given mercy. Bash somebody and you're gone.</p> <p>As far as google search, this site has been #1 when googling 'big bluegill' since late 2008, but did not make the top ten when googling 'bluegill' until late 2009. Now if you google 'bluegill' on Bing, Google or Yahoo, BBG is firmly entrenched in the top five, and often in the top two, trailing only internet giant Wikipedia.</p>
<p>This site is about fun. We don't take ourselves too seriously, and we don't generate advertising revenue. Aaron and Bruce pay for the site with their own money and hard work. If a really good advertiser ever came along who wanted to pay $100/month, and would agree to just a header ad, and if they were bluegill or fishing related, we might consider it, but otherwise the site maintains it's charm by just being a bunch of kind and generous fishermen and fisherwomen who like this sort of thing.</p>" _emptydescriptionerrormessage="Please write something for your reply." _setvalueurl="http://bigbluegill.com/forum/comment/update?id=2036984%3AComment%3A237030">

It was to everybody's surprise after a few days that people actually started joining this site.  They seemed to be attracted to the light-hearted "go have some fun" attitude of the early members.  One thing that has kept this site strong is the very strong set of rules that allow for no bashing of other members, or their beliefs, or their methods.  There are no second chances on BBG.  If you break a rule, you are not given a warning, you are not given a second chance and you are not given mercy.  Bash somebody and you're gone.

As far as google search, this site has been #1 when googling 'big bluegill' since late 2008, but did not make the top ten when googling 'bluegill' until late 2009.  Now if you google 'bluegill' on Bing, Google or Yahoo, BBG is firmly entrenched in the top five, and often in the top two, trailing only internet giant Wikipedia.

This site is about fun.  We don't take ourselves too seriously, and we don't generate advertising revenue.  We have yet to solve a single one of the world's problems.  Aaron and Bruce pay for the site with their own money and hard work.  If a really good advertiser ever came along who wanted to pay $100/month, and would agree to just a header ad, and if they were bluegill or fishing related, we might consider it, but otherwise the site maintains it's charm by just being a bunch of kind and generous fishermen and fisherwomen who like this sort of thing.

[Jeffrey D. Abney]

I googled "Bluegill" for something and happened to scroll over the link and like John said, I've been here ever since.......Use to wait a month in between my favorite magazine issues but now I can learn something or see wonderful testimony several times a day! Just think, if every member could get one new angler to join and we'll have over 5,000 chances to learn secrets to catching more bluegill.......

[John Sheehan]

When i saw the link in In -Fisherman mag back in 09 i guess it was ,I headed to this site created a profile and never left

[Greg McWilliams]

Found it in August of '08, the only site like iton Bluegill I go to!!!!! That was a slow night on the MARCH MADNESS GAMES!!!!! :-)

You made good use of your time BRUCE!!!!!!

JOB WELL DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!