What a long four years it's been...
In April of 2000 - five months after being left for dead - this website was mentioned in Forbes, on Fark.com, and on Tech TV's Internet Tonight.
With thousands of new web users discovering WASAW for the first time and begging for more content, Paddy O' Poppycock was faced with a choice - to revive the site or let it continue to just sit there. Four years later, he explains why he chose the latter.
Four friends at work (Candyman, Sir Snackalot, Figaroo and Kid Nougat) began writing reports on a regular basis. It was Candyman, in fact, that penned the first review which inspired me to begin posting snack reports online. Before you knew it, we had amassed 50 reports. Then 75. Then 100.
WASAW became its own website when, in late 1998, someone from Zentek Inernational, impressed with the site's wackiness, contacted me to ask if they could host the site for free. (Amazingly, they still do.)
* * *
In November 1999, around the time WASAW hit 150 snack reports, I was offered a job at a new Web portal called iWon.com. It offered daily chances at $10,000 and in time planned to offer many of the same functionality as Yahoo!, Excite or Lycos. Most importantly, it was my chance to start working on the Internet. And get paid to do so.
Funny thing about being the only writer for a start-up portal with $200 million in CBS seed money that's taking on the most popular and successful companies on the Internet. You don't go home a lot. And when you do, it's not for very long.
So it was that when I went to work for iWon, WASAW became an early Internet casualty - neglected like a Banana Dream sitting on the dessert table at an all-you-can-eat Filet Mignon buffet. And yet, despite the lack of updates, the best of times for WASAW were still a few months away.
* * *
An April 2000 email from a ZDNetTV producer asking if I or any Snacker could be interviewed via webcam during one of their cable shows gave me a clue these silly little snack reports were no longer a minor word-of-mouth success. This, despite the fact I hadn't touched the site in nearly half a year.
As so often happens on the Web, one or two influential sites published WASAW's URL that same month and dozens of other, smaller sites, followed suit. Seemingly overnight, I was getting emails from all over the country, and a number from international snacking locations. I tried responding to as many as I could, promising new content when I could free up some time. As it turned out, that free time didn't come for four years. (And even now, it's fleeting. Like a box of Moon Pies in an RC Cola bottling plant.)
* * *
A number of snack review sites have sprung up since April 2000. The most impressive of which appears to be Taquitos.net. I found an August 2001 link on a random site that said Taquitos.net was "picking up where WASAW left off."
Somehow they've put together over 2,150 snack reports in the past three years - all or most focused on popcorn, chips and pretzels. The reports are brief, but well organized into categories and manufacturers. The site even has an RSS feed. (Don't ask me what an RSS feed is - just know that you'll never see one on WASAW.) And you can even add their snack reports to your My Yahoo! page. Amazing.
On the downside, there are a gazillion "Ads by Google" modules on the site. Figures, the one thing WASAW does better than Taquitos.net - better than anyone online, in fact - is not make any money.
* * *
I hope the above explains why WASAW was dormant for so long. And let's be honest, we could be again in the future. But for now, we're all happy to be back serving you - with helpful snack info and a generous side order of yuck-yucks.
After all, we may no longer be the biggest snack report site on the Internet, but dammit, we're the only one that still uses frames.
Paddy O'
Poppycock's
snack reviews
Wonka Bar
Andes Mints
Nestle Toll House Candy Bars (Soft and Chewy Cookie)
Turkey Hill Double-Decker Ice Cream Sandwich
Hershey's White Chocolate with Almonds
White Chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Ben & Jerry's 'Wich
Cookies & Twix
MoonPie
Almond Joy (Pina Colada)
Hershey's Caramel Kiss
Goetze's Cow Tales
York Peppermint Patties
Chew-ets
Payday
RUGER Vanilla Flavored Wafers
Drake's Apple Fruit Pies
DOTS®
Austin ZOO Animal Crackers
HOHOs
Tootsie Roll Twin Bar Pack
Linden's
Butter Crunchers Cookies
WEGE Thin Pretzels
Party Mix!
Raisinets
Snyder's Ultra Thin Pretzels
Goetze's Original Caramel Creams
Windsor Creme Wafers
OREO Granola Bar
Flake (British)
Black Forest Cherry Chocolate Cookies
Nestle Giant CRUNCH
Dolly Madison Banana Dream
Plantation Chocolate Fudge Brownie
Planters Original Peanut Bar
Hershey's Sweet Escapes
KitKat
Pepperidge Farm
2 Brownie Cookies
Farley's Fruit Snacks - Strawberry
Andy Capp Hot Fries
Joey's Black & White (cookie)
PR* Ironman bar
Reese's Pieces
Nutri-Grain TWISTS
Potato Stix
5th Avenue
Mini Rice Cakes
Dunkin' Stix
Heath Bar
Merendina (Italian)
Wispa (British)
Smile!
S'Moresels
Toffifay
Yoohoo bar