As I brought up in the November 2016 publisher’s column – which marked GayCalgary Magazine’s 13th Anniversary – there was another milestone forthcoming.
In January, 1992, Men For Men BBS was up and running. Men For Men BBS allowed guys in Calgary to connect using their computers and dial-up modems to interact with one another. This was all done before the Internet became mainstream. Think of the apps Scruff or Grindr; the website Squirt.org with no photos or graphics, with all text, no mouse or touch, but text menu options that you selected where you want to go. Though it was used primarily for hook-ups or guys looking for friends, there was still a community events calendar, business directory, discussion groups and an extensive X-rated photo gallery, wherein you needed to download the photo to see it. While you were downloading, you could not do anything else on the site but wait for it to complete.
The number of guys you could chat with live, one-on-one, was dependent on how many phone lines the system had. It started with one phone line, and all you could do was leave a message for other users, or post a message on the discussion forum. Once BBS got busy, I added four phone lines, and then guys could chat live one-on-one.
I was running it out of my apartment; I found out four lines are the limit for residential, even though I was paying for business lines. Eventually I had to move the system down to Boyztown and the Rekroom so I could expand to eight. Inside Boyztown and the Rekroom I set up four terminals throughout the bar so guys inside could chat with guys dialing in from outside. As the Internet finally became publicly available, I set up the BBS to allow people that were online to be part of the system.
Men For Men BBS became so popular that Men For Men Fridays were set up so guys could come down and meet one another face to face in the Rekroom. Lots of these guys were either in the closet, married, or just not part of the regular gay scene. Using the BBS helped them become comfortable in exploring their sexuality.
Once we were on the Internet, GayCalgary.com, MenForMenGalleries.com and several other domain names were registered in 1997 and 1998, and websites were setup shortly after. The business directory, events listings and the forum became part of GayCalgary.com, where the X-rated photos became part of the MenForMenGalleries.com.
Once I got my first digital camera, photos I was taking throughout the community started getting added to the GayCalgary.com website. In 2000, we broadcast the first drag show live over the Internet. The videos became so popular that a separate website called GayCalgary.TV was created. After a while, it was brought back into the GayCalgary website to be along the photos that were also taken during those shows. This was all done before YouTube existed, and streaming sites, like Netflix.
In 2002, we did our first email blasts letting digital subscribers know what was going on in Calgary. GayCalgary Internet kiosks were set up throughout Calgary’s gay bars. Also, in several gay bars, the computer screen savers were adapted to run on the TVs, which showcased events going on in the community, as well as inside the bars. Each bar had photos of guys intermixed with the ads, but the photos of the guys were custom selected for each bar to go along with the clientele. Guys could also download the screen saver from the GayCalgary website so they could watch it at home.
It was too cost prohibitive to set up a computer to generate it live, even though I really wanted to, so all the bars needed it recorded to an eight-hour VHS tape every month. Eventually we could burn them to recordable DVDs, but it still took a long time to do it and – depending on how old the bar’s DVD player was – we could not always make sure the new recordable DVD format would work.
There was an off-shoot service called GayNetmeeting.com that allowed users with webcams and the Microsoft application NetMeeting, which was on Windows ’95 to Windows XP, to video-chat with one another. It was not as well-developed as webcam chat sites like you see today, since the technology was extremely new. There was a list of users on the site with their handle, a description of themselves, location in the world and if they were available to chat or were busy. You clicked on who you wanted to video chat with and off it went to connect you to them. It was only set up for one-on-one connection but, at its peak, we had several thousands of guys on the site at a time. Since the technology was new-tech – and more designed for business use than guys chatting with one another over the Internet – it was hard to make sure everyone was of legal age, to monitor the site, or stop spammers. So I took it offline; it was starting to be easier to chat with webcams on other services.
With the newsletter email blasts doing well, and after talking to the owners of some of the gay bars and some of Calgary’s gay community groups, I decided to bring everything together. I launched in November, 2003, the first edition of GayCalgary Magazine. My background was in computer technology and I saw that so many tech companies were also becoming media companies or merging with existing ones, so it became a logical next step for GayCalgary to do the same.
As people started to use their own home computers to access the Internet and Internet cafes started closing their doors, we removed the Internet terminals from the gay bars. Also, to concentrate on the magazine more, we stopped doing the videos for the bars. It was hard to make sure they were getting played and, with so many bars for us to do these videos for, it started taking several days every month to get them done.
The magazine grew and expanded into the Edmonton market. We added to the title "and Edmonton" and eventually realized that it was too hard for people to remember and say. So, it got rebranded back to GayCalgary, but tailored to an Alberta-wide readership.
Technology advanced again and the print media industry needed to change along with it. Luckily, GayCalgary Magazine roots were already online: all editions of GayCalgary Magazine had been online since 2003. We even introduced features like streaming video in PDF editions of the magazine several years before devices like the iPad were launched. Advertiser ads were linked to their websites, that is, if they had one. As smart phones and tablets became more popular, some of these features became standard for other online magazines.
When we noticed that over 60 per cent of our readers were online, we knew it was time to start cutting back magazine locations and the size of the print run. I remember that – four years into doing the magazine – we noticed that more people had read the edition online before we had the hard copies in our hands for distribution, which was usually only a 24 to 48 hour turn around.
But once it was consistently more than 95 per cent of our readers reading us online, we decided the December 2014/January 2015 edition was going to be the last in print. Shortly thereafter we saw other magazines follow suit. Even the newspaper industry was having problems keeping up with the changes in technology: at one point we had more digital subscribers than some of the major local newspapers.
In 25 years, Men For Men/GayCalgary has done a lot. I tried to keep things in the bleeding edge technology area, and try things out before they became mainstream, all on a tight budget. How many companies rose and fell over the past 25 years that were in media or technology; how many merged with others or became a memory? The BBS ran on my Commodore Amiga 2000. It would be interesting to see how many of our current readers even know what that is today. For history’s sake, the machine is still in my possession.
During these 25 years, the gay community has changed a lot too. So many bars opened and closed their doors ... and it is still changing. Community groups have rebranded; some favourites are gone and new ones emerge amid the increased amounts of gay friendly space. Cowboys Nightclub and Flames Central were places never before seen as gay venues – now they host large events and the staff and management have been great to deal with.
Gay Pride has grown to be bigger than I think anyone would have thought. Changes to gay rights have happened, like marriage equality and proper protection in our human rights code for the LGBTQ community.
I know I use the term we as I bring up the history of Men For Men/GayCalgary; people forget that it has mostly been I doing just about everything. I started all of this. I come up with most of the ideas. I do the tech research of where it needs to go to next and still do just about everything now. Just think of how many businesses, or non-profit groups in the LGBTQ community, still have the same person heading them after 25 years.
But I use the term we because numerous people have come along the way to help with the parts I could not do by myself. Without Rob Diaz-Marino, there would be no way GayCalgary or the magazine would be where it is today. Development of what the website is, layout and design, editing, graphics and so much more. We have known each other since 2001, including dating, for most of that. His decision to leave the magazine in 2014 was needed to give him time to work on his own projects, which he has been wanting to do for a long time. He and Justin, his new boyfriend, still support me; they both know it is a lot of work, and Rob helps when I need it.
There have been so many contributors that I have lost count; others who have helped with programming parts of the website, the original GayCalgary logo, and pushing me forward. When I talk to other magazines, they see what has been accomplished and all assume I have a staff of at least 25 working in a large office. There are times that I wish that were the case, but our local gay economy could never really support that.
Back when the servers for Men For Men/GayCalgary were in the Rekroom, people did not know that as the party was happening outside the office doors, I was working away in the office. From the time the cleaning staff would come in to when the staff would leave, I was working on the different websites, sorting through photos, doing computer maintenance, testing out new tech, etc. I would pop out to the bar, order a drink, and then head back in. The only time I would really interact with people was when I was taking photos of events or video of the drag show.
Once the sever farm moved to my home, I could work on things a lot more easily without worrying about other people’s hours of operation. I would roll out of bed, work away on magazine stuff, and sleep again. Food and other things do happen, but most of my time is dealing with magazine stuff. I leave the house when needed, like to cover events, shopping, banking or just to get a break, which I do need every now and then.
Has it been easy to do what I do for the past 25 years? GOD NO. With how many gay magazines have disappeared in Alberta during the last decades – some of them having ads for either Men For Men or GayCalgary – I am happy that I persevered. Without this, so many things would have been forgotten about or only discussed between friends on social media.
So, what is in store for the next 25 years? When I started I was 20. I am 44 now, and if I am 69 and still doing this, that would be scary. I am not planning on shutting things down, but the future of GayCalgary will change according to technology and demand.
Over the past several months, I have been working away on some back-end stuff. To help people find articles on specific topics, articles by specific contributors, or interviews we have done with their favourite celebrities, I have added keyword searches at the bottom of each article. All new articles are getting them, and I have gone back to the very first edition and started updating those to contain the same feature, and the same layout standards we use today.
Back to the contributors who have helped create the content: I will be setting up a special web page to highlight our current contributors with a link to the articles they have written. Contributors that are no longer writing for us will be listed, but not highlighted as the current ones will be. The new feature update will take time; there are close to 6,000 articles to update, but at least readers can use it right away on some.
Once I get through the first year or so of magazines, I will start to post them onto social media. I tried to do this before, but realized that I needed to bring things together so readers could continue reading the next article that we did on a specific bar or non-profit group. I also want to see what it was like when the magazine first started, and how much our community has changed.
I also need to ensure every edition is properly set up on ISSUU and Magzter. This way people can find all editions of GayCalgary and access it through those apps without needing to be going through the GayCalgary website, which should expand our readership further. It is also part of holding the magazine off site in a digital world. Unless you go to the Gay and Lesbian archives or a museum, you can’t easily access defunct publications and see what the gay community was like. By having it on ISSUU and Magzter, I am hoping those sites will last.
Other changes I’m working on will appear slowly. Unfortunately, this gets me behind on other tasks, like getting current editions online in a timely manner. All articles and ads go online within a couple days of me receiving them plus, with the weekly email blasts, events listings, and social media postings, readers can remain in the loop without having a complete edition online.
We are still going strong with over 21,750+ digital subscribers; readers are still on the website an average of 20 minutes; there are over 300,000 readers per month; and, for the past five years, GayCalgary Magazine is the most popular LGBTQ+ magazine in Canada, according to Alexa.com. There might be bumps in the road, especially as the economy rebuilds, but the future looks good for us.
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Contributor Steve Polyak |
Locale Calgary |
Topic History | Men For Men | Publisher's Column | Technology |
