all about beards is on Facebook now.  Click on the image above to visit the beards.org page on Facebook.  Visit our page on Facebook and become a fan!  Support the bearded cause and help add more beards to the world.  Click on the image above and become a fan of beards.org on Facebook!

On January 17, 1996, all about beards first appeared on the worldwide web.  The site started out on web space provided for AOL members.  The host name was members.aol.com.  On January 20, 2005, all about beards officially moved to its permanent home at beards.org.  The legacy all about beards site on members.aol.com was left up for sentimental reasons until AOL pulled the plug on it on October 31, 2008.  All that remains of the AOL site’s legacy is that the official site contact email address is still the original AOL email address that has been used since the January 1996 launch of all about beards.

Today on the site’s fourteenth anniversary, the site is bigger and stronger than ever, with the momentum ever increasing.  More importantly, the site has encouraged and inspired countless men around the world to experience the unique adventure of growing a beard with great success.   The site remains dedicated to “growing better beards worldwide”, “adding more beards to the world”, and increasing the acceptance of beards everywhere.  I’d like to thank all of the beard growers and supporters everywhere whose beard-growing contributions have strengthened all about beards and advanced the bearded cause around the world.

The gallery image counter hit eleven million views on January 6, 2010!  We hit ten million on October 25, 2009.  It would have been nice to hit eleven million before the end of 2009, but this is still close enough!  The eleven million number, however, only represents the number of beard views since the counter started from zero on January 26, 2006.

This time, I wasn’t at the keyboard to see which photo was number eleven million.  In consolation, I’m illustrating this post with a previously-unpublished photo of Christopher.

I wish you much happiness and happy beard growing in 2010!  All about beards celebrates fourteen years on the web this month!  This continues the site’s reign as the longest-running beard site on the web.

On the first day of this new year, it’s a good time to stop and give thanks.  I am so thankful to all of the contributors from around the world who help make beards.org a shining showcase for beards, inspiring men around the globe to experience the joy of growing a beard.  Thank you, all.

Looking back, all about beards had some pretty lean years.  The message history for the all about beards Yahoo! group that’s been used to announce site updates since 2001 is telling.  Here is how it appeared at the end of 2009:

The numbers represent the number of site updates announced each month.  By 2001, the supply of content dwindled down to a trickle.  In addition to the lack of new content, other problems impeded the site’s growth during those very lean years.  2001 through 2004 were especially barren because the beards of the world gallery did not debut until November of 2004 (originally called the bearded visitors gallery).

Eventually, digital cameras came to the rescue.  The proliferation of digital cameras worldwide made it easy for beard growers everywhere to send in photos for the gallery.  The beards of the world gallery has become the beating heart and pride of all about beards.

Thanks, everyone, for growing your beards!  And by all means, keep showing off those beards here on beards.org!  Send ‘em in!

Have a wonderful 2010!  Happy new beard year!

At 8:42 PM PST, the counter in the galleries hit the seven million mark!  We hit six million back on October 22, 2008.  I would have liked to hit seven million by the end of 2008.  But I’m happy to start off this early in 2009 with such a great milestone.  Keep viewing those great beards in the galleries!

So which photo was the lucky number seven million?  Well, this time I was at the keyboard and was able to see which one it was.  It was this photo of Andrew:

Click on the image above to see the larger version.

At the end of June, the galleries hit five million views.  Late this evening, the counter clicked over to six million views.  I wasn’t at the keyboard when it happened.  I missed seeing it by 188 views.  So I don’t readily know who was lucky number six million.  At five million it was Jason (although it was not this photo — this one does not appear in the galleries at this time):

Click on the photo above to go to Jason’s beard feature.

I would like to heartily thank Joe for doing his part to support the bearded cause.  Joe is the latest addition to our featured beards series:

Check out Joe’s beard feature by clicking on his photo above.

Wow.  I thought that things would get back to normal in September.  Boy, was I wrong.

The Firefox 3 browser came out yesterday and it slightly breaks the beards.org page layout.  It moves the image that’s supposed to be in the upper right-hand corner over next to the image in the upper left-hand corner.  I’ve found a way to fix the problem.  But it will take me a while to get the change made to all of the affected pages.  I was already behind on stuff for the site, so this extra work isn’t exactly a welcome development.  Some of the pages have already been fixed.  I’ll fix the rest as soon as I can plow through them.  Meanwhile, if the upper-right corner image is not in its rightful place as you view the site in Firefox 3, you’ll know why.