Growing Up: The website from 2000 to today

It all began with a radical change. After almost ten years of fan club existence with a popular it magazine, the decision was finally made at the end of 1999 to stop publishing magazines in future. The reasons for this were complex – one of them was the change in information culture. Suddenly, a lot of information was available much faster via the internet than in the it magazine.

The change in the club's character brought new challenges. There were still members who needed to use an exclusive area of the site. At the beginning, Helmut, Peter and Bernd needed technical help to implement this, and in the end, the project required significantly more effort than planned. As a result, the launch of the website was initially postponed before version 1.0 was finally launched in March 2000.

In terms of concept, version 1.0 did not differ greatly from it magazine. For a small membership fee, members gained access to a protected area containing exclusive features and interviews. General news was available to everyone in a news archive. From then on, members received the latest news via email newsletter. This also meant that Version 1.0 was not initially up to date for everyone, but the incentive to be a full member was still there.

The design, however, was naturally different from that in the magazines, simply because programming in HTML has different requirements than laying out a magazine. Version 1.0 remained unchanged until October 2000.

The first change took place in autumn 2000. Plans for the The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway event were in full swing, and it seemed logical to make better use of the striking value of a home page to promote the event. From then on, version 2.0 was no longer a circular design, but a classic box. The 'demolition' of the old front pages was taken from the old it magazines and a current topic was advertised on the right, which of course had a recognition value for fans of the old magazine structure.

The editorial, which was appropriate at the time (and reintroduced in August 2008), was advertised more prominently on the home page in order to draw the attention of readers, who were of course increasingly random visitors to the website, to changes to the website and announcements by the club. This version of the website remained in place until October 2001.

In November 2001, the website lost its purely club/membership character and all content and services were made available to everyone free of charge. In a sense, version 3.0 was the most radical change – making everything available to everyone also meant, in the long term, doing without membership fees and financing everything ourselves. At that point, however, the website did not yet have excessive visitor numbers, so the costs for web hosting remained within reasonable limits. Version 3.0 was launched in November 2001 – this time, the hook was the release of the fan club CDIt's Only Knock And Knowall to mark the club's tenth anniversary. Particular attention was drawn to the release party in the form of the it Meeting 2002.

The left side of the home page was slightly modified. The wreath and the '10 years' were, of course, only temporary, but from then on, Rael stood in front of a gate symbolising the entrance to the website. In May 2002, Christian Gerhardts joined the editorial team. Initially, this had little impact on the structure of the home page. Until the beginning of 2003, little changed in terms of design.

The next changes were minor. Peter Gabriel's upcoming tour had a noticeable effect on website traffic, prompting two changes. Firstly, in version 4, Rael now looked at a key, which was intended to make the entrance to the website even clearer. Secondly, a kind of 'interactive typewriter text' with top news items was added below the home page box. This was the first response to the growing demand for information and, above all, the growing demand for up-to-date information.

News became increasingly important, and our website also moved, albeit very tentatively at first, more and more towards a news focus. However, newsletters were still sent out at regular intervals, rarely 'urgently' – and the news section of the site also lagged somewhat behind current developments. The small news items on the home page were therefore only a first step, which, in retrospect, was already insufficient at that point.

This did not change significantly with version 5. The Gabriel Tour was still the talk of the town and kept us busy. Minor adjustments were made here and there, the 'setlist service' enjoyed great popularity, and the 1,000 users per day mark was eventually surpassed. As a result, the news (at that time still with a 'watcher' header) was updated a little more regularly. On the home page, the gate in front of Rael was significantly enlarged, while at the same time the running text on the home page disappeared again. We tried out various minor changes, but version 5 was only a cosmetic solution – we had long had a more elaborate website in mind, but that took time. From May 2003 to early 2004, version 5 remained relatively unchanged.

Growing visitor numbers, simultaneous tours by Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett, Ray Wilson and The Musical Box – there was a lot going on at the beginning of 2004. Our plans to revolutionise the homepage in one fell swoop (at the time, we thought our plans were fabulous…) had to take a back seat to current events. Rising costs had also long since caused a financial problem.

For this reason, partner programmes were activated at the end of 2003. These were finally integrated into the entire website in 2004 and remain our sole source of funding to this day, ensuring the continued existence of the website and the club. An Amazon logo appeared on the home page for the first time. Version 6 remained in place until autumn 2004, when the time was ripe for a new design. The aim was to offer a visually appealing site while keeping it as easy to use as possible.

In October 2004, the time had come – a completely new design went online. A lot of work lay behind us, and not all articles were there from the start. The home page now had a modular design. At the top was the it logo (unchanged since 1994) next to an album collage, with three columns below. The top topic was promoted centrally in the middle column, below which were the latest news and articles. On the right, icons drew attention to website features. The menu was split and was now located at the top and on the left. In the background, we used CSS styles to make the fonts more uniform.

But we were still stuck in the HTML trap – a rigid system that had to be edited with HTML editors. Christian had now become the main webmaster and was primarily responsible for the news section. This was finally up to date. Another change was the English version of our website, which was launched under the domain genesis-news.com. Initially, this was an 'add-on', as the English features and articles were also on genesis-fanclub.de and only the overview pages were on the English domain. Version 7 marked the start of a series of minor changes.

Over time, the website became relatively narrow, so another column was added starting with version 8. This took place in July 2006, and from then on, the page was approximately 900 pixels wide. A new column was also added to the news and other overview pages, primarily to promote current publications. Technically, more and more HTML elements disappeared and were replaced by CSS programming. This was also new territory and required a lot of time. At this point, the basic design of version 7 had already been online for two years and there was a growing desire for a dynamic system, preferably a CMS. We had long since realised that the last relaunch was ultimately only a temporary solution – we hadn't dared to take the big leap.

To make matters worse, we were unable to stick to our plan of offering detailed magazine articles, tour dates and discographies. This was the focus of all internal discussions on the subject, but before we could get down to work, we were not only surprised but completely overwhelmed by Genesis' reunion plans shortly before our Evolution of Genesis event in 2006. Within a few days, the number of newsletter subscribers increased sixfold and our site crashed several times due to massive traffic. We needed our own server.

After the reunion tour was announced in 2007, the website experienced unprecedented traffic. Daily visitor numbers remained consistently above 10,000 (unique visitors, not clicks!) and continued to grow steadily. As a result, we had to rent a new, more powerful server shortly before the tour. The investment paid off. The new server was ready for use just before the dress rehearsal in Brussels – at that time, 30,000 visitors were already checking in every day to find out the latest news about the tour.

On 27 June, the day of the second Düsseldorf concert, we broke our previous record – just over 50,000 different visitors accessed our website on that day. For some time, the homepage had been among the top three Google search results for the word 'Genesis'. And although the new server was relatively expensive, this investment was also worthwhile.

On the journey from Brussels to Germany, Helmut, Peter and Christian sat at the front of the ICE train and discussed the long-overdue move to a fully dynamic website system. At least in terms of graphic design, we were inspired by the ICE itself, which is easy to see.

It quickly became clear that we would need a tailor-made system. Christian's brother Armin, who understands the mechanics of these systems, had further developed and adapted his self-programmed CMS specifically for this purpose. No one could have guessed that it would ultimately take more than a year before version 10 was ready. But on 3 August 2008, the new site finally went live with the appropriate home page graphic 'Big New Site'.

The first few weeks and months after introducing the new structure were mainly spent ironing out teething problems. Eventually, the new system was up and running, and the forum and photo galleries now fit in better with the new design. On special occasions, there were always special design elements on the website. News items could now be commented on with the forum account, and this account was also indispensable for other functions of the site. Our album league, which was embedded in the new system, was particularly well received.

In September 2010, after a few minor visual changes (e.g. the button design in the left-hand column), another change was made: version 11 of our website was now 'socialised', meaning that you could use social network functions on almost all pages. We also started providing news via our Facebook page and Twitter. However, both were and are intended to supplement the news on the website, not replace it.

In the following years, we did not make any major changes to the website design. It was not until March 2016 that we replaced the 'popular articles' section at the bottom of the home page with another graphic block. Our aim was to draw attention to special features alongside the cover story. In March 2016, the reissues of Phil Collins' albums were the current cover story, and the newly launched Peter Gabriel Recording Compendium was added as a website special at the bottom of the page.

At the turn of 2016/2017, there were the first signs of a major change. First, we had to move to a new server and encountered compatibility issues with the old website. The old vBulletin forum also needed to be updated, but we discovered that the company behind it no longer existed. So, we first had to research and test the market.

But first, there was a change on the English website: the English Genesis forum 'Turn It On Again' was shut down, and we agreed to give it a new home with us. However, the forum had to start from scratch because the old content could not be transferred. Our English forum was launched with Woltlab software and went online on 10 April 2018.

The transition of the German forum to the new software took place in May 2018 and went smoothly, in principle. The main page was also getting on in years, and major backend updates were becoming increasingly difficult. So we had to come up with something. These considerations were pursued more stringently at times, but mostly less so. An initial demo of a new website was created in 2018, but we did not continue working on it at first.

Another major change was the integration with social media. The English and German websites had and still have various accounts on different social media platforms. We have been present on the major social media sites since 2009 and 2010. Some things have proven successful, while others we have deleted, but overall it must be said that it is virtually impossible to do without social networks. As we also follow controversial discussions, we also have accounts on less frequented networks – for example, in the recent past, Mastodon as a German X alternative or, most recently, BluSky for our international followers.

In 2019/2020, we were able to stabilise our website technically, which bought us some time. But the need for a major relaunch remained. Unlike in 2007/2008, we now had an incredible amount of news and articles on the website. Accordingly, a technical solution was needed to transfer everything. However, Word Press had already been identified as the solution. It took until the second half of 2023 for the plans to take shape. It quickly became clear that manual transfer would be utopian due to the sheer volume of content.

At the beginning of 2024, we finally had to temporarily suspend updates to the website. One of the reasons for this was the extensive reworking required after a 'hidden' relaunch that was only visible to us and a few editors. Important news and articles were temporarily posted in the blog section of the it forum. This situation lasted for almost five months.

The current version of the website went live on 1 July 2024. It still had many imperfections, which we gradually corrected. But we were actually able to transfer all previous content into the new structure. The English site followed on 1 January 2025 – in a slightly different colour.

The biggest changes are technical in nature: we now have a responsive website, which means that the display adapts to the end device. For us, this means that, unlike in the past, we have to think from the bottom (view on a mobile phone) to the top (view on a large monitor) when we consider design and technical refinements. We changed the old three-column layout to a two-column layout – and this only applies to desktop views or landscape formats on tablets. The readability of articles on end devices has long been the most important criterion for websites, and we can now meet this requirement.

However, this also means that we now have to take a different approach to the visual gimmicks and tricks that we always liked to incorporate into the website. Nevertheless we're sure to find ways to visually showcase good ideas on the website.

But we're still not finished with the overall concept, as extensive databases on discographies and tour dates are still in the works. But we can already say that the tour database is nearing completion. This process is taking much longer than we expected. We are also still planning a new section – Album of the Month. You've heard all this many times before, and we ourselves have fallen victim to our own announcements, but new opportunities arose during the Christmas prediction game. And we now want to take advantage of them.

The German website has been around for nearly 26 years. The English website has been online for just over 20 years. There is still a lot to report and research. And as long as that remains the case, we will continue to work on the website.

…to be continued

Last update: January 2026
the it-editorial team