It's been a hectic week around Talkin' Broadway. Every year or so we have to assess our situation with our server to see how much space we have left for publishing. And another is the amount of bandwidth we are using. Of course, we had very little space left and the bandwidth is going through the roof.

It was time to upgrade. What it entails is moving the entire site onto a new machine, and to do it seemlessly. We've done it 3 times already and each time you're bound to run into a few bugs here and there; this time was no exception. There are various scripts with passwords which didn't work, and our message boards were filling up. We couldn't trim them. Racing with the clock, our Webmaster, Ann Miner, fixed all the problems before an impending crash. Moving a site is always a hair-raising experience, but we've successfully moved and can get back to talkin' Broadway. Thanks Ann!

Another key reason for moving was that we have a few new areas to debut in 2001 and we needed the space for that. Currently we have 3 "All That Chat" message boards which are quite active. We'll be adding a fourth come Jan. 1, 2001. This board will be more of an international flavor. Robert Rusie and Harper Strom are working on a database for research and educational purposes for Broadway 101 and that will make its debut also in 2001. We've also added 3 more writers to our staff and they'll be making their debuts next year as well.

The Press has been very generous this year with mentioning this site. As a result the traffic continues to grow. Next up is an issue of Variety-ev, a monthly magazine which hits the newstands on Dec. 18. I understand we're getting a mention in that. Each time we get mentioned, we feel a surge in traffic, but now we're prepared.

See you Sunday!

Wanna' talk to others about this column or anything else theatre related? Check out All That Chat