MADISON, Wis. -- In the beginning, there was newspapers, radio and television and life seemed good.

People woke up to their morning paper, listened to news radio as they drove and then vegged out on the couch to catch the nightly news after dinner. Life was neatly regimented, and comfortably predictable. The roles of news provider and audience were well-defined and understood by all parties.

Then, in 1994, everything changed. Daily news plugged into an emerging medium -- the Internet -- and suddenly, it was a whole new ballgame. The Internet provided an exciting way for people to share information, revolutionizing our society, including the collection and distribution of news. The Web offered the public an unparalleled level of interactivity, timeliness and depth that hadn't been available before. Now, everything was only a click away. More than 10 years later, we're still striving to master this ever-evolving paradigm.

Ready for the challenge, the Web site you're visiting right now officially launched in the summer of 1998 (July 13, 1998, to be precise). And in the 10 years since, Channel 3000 has sought to be a reliable resource for all the information you care about -- local news, sports, weather, crime, politics, features and entertainment. Before Google, before MySpace, and before YouTube, there was our very own Channel 3000.

Despite turbulent economic times, fueled by hard work and dedication, Channel 3000 has now become the fixture its founders dreamt of. Shattering its previous record, the site recently had its highest web traffic month ever in June 2008 and according to Nielsen's NetRatings in May, the site was the most popular local news Web site in the Madison area.

Channel 3000's journey up local news' Mount Olympus is one peopled with visionaries, pioneers and committed workers striving toward a common goal: creating the best possible local news Web site. The road hasn't been smooth nor straight and we certainly didn't achieve success overnight. (To celebrate the site's birthday, we've resurrected our first logo and colors for this week.)

Our story begins in the summer of 1997 when WISC-TV started its foray into online journalism. The station's first Web site, WISCTV.com, was the creation of Murphy Entertainment Group (MEG), a sister company owned by Morgan Murphy Media, which also owns the TV station.

Tom Bier, WISC-TV station manager and then-news director, said that the initial site was simply a place to post TV scripts, still a common practice by news sites around the nation. The value of the Web pages was subservient to TV news interests -- it was mainly to allow viewers who missed a broadcast to read the story again, he said.

Bier said that while the Web had no power, no proven track record in terms of drawing in users, he and others saw the possibilities.

"We saw the potential of online and the Internet," he said. "We saw an opportunity that was going to be developing as a way to reach an audience and we wanted to do our best to get there."

Bier said that, at the time, skeptics remained prevalent in the TV world.

"There were people in the industry -- locally and nationally -- who wondered why we were throwing cash into this money pit," he said. "There were certainly people who believed it wasn't going to happen. Or they said, if it does happen, then we'll join the parade."

Bier credits WISC-TV general manager David Sanks, news manager Steve Koehn and the site's designers at MEG for providing some of the site's core concepts. Bier said that they also had to struggle with some fundamental philosophical questions, such as whether the site should be considered a different identity from the TV newscast.

"'Is this a television station's Web site?' 'Or should this be a new media, a separate media?'" he said.

Bier said that while the TV and Web site are intertwined and have a strong partnership, the site developed as an independent entity.

The first recruit to steer this infant site was Madison native Barb Palser, a budding journalist pursuing a graduate degree in computer programming. Today, Palser is director of digital media for McGraw-Hill Broadcasting Co. in San Diego, Calif., but she said she saw in the Web an opportunity to combine two of her interests.

"At that time, there weren't too many jobs that combined Internet and journalism," Palser said. "That was when you coded everything by hand. I was kind of into that."

Palser said that the WISCTV.com site had recently launched when she was hired in the later summer of 1997 and she was brought in to manage it.

Bier said that Palser brought a great deal of Web experience to the managing editor position.

"She was there from the beginning," he said. "She had an excitement about being on the ground floor."

He also said that her position was truly unique during that time because it was solely dedicated to the Web. He said that most TV operations typically had a part-time person updating their site.

"The idea of having a journalist who's a manager equivalent of a news director (was quite unusual)," he said.

During the next 12 months, the site went endured a series of changes as its structure and mission began to formulate. The site underwent two to three redesigns, including a brief attempt to give the site a separate identity as "Liveline"

"I can't imagine this had much of audience," Bier said of their initial forays. "We didn't quite know what we were doing."

As time went on, however, Palser said that she was struck by the fierce demand for information that came through the Web. She said that a TV report about state officials developing a database of unclaimed property promoted the fact that a link to the database was posted on the site and this led to a surge in Web traffic.

"We were pounded," she said. "At that time, in '97 and '98, that wasn't a common experience. That was one of the things that woke everyone up to the impact we had."

By the end of 1997 and into early 1998, however, the site had matured to the extent that the station began to search out partners and tools that would enhance and compliment their initial efforts. As spring came, the station struck up a partnership with Internet Broadcasting (at the time, known as Internet Broadcasting Systems) to launch a new version of the site, Channel 3000.com.

"By that point, it had become obvious. You needed to begin thinking about this," he said. "If you were doing news, people saw what this could be. You wanted to get into this game."

"Ultimately, it just felt we needed to move a step beyond the very basic site that MEG had built for us," Palser said.

Bier and Palser said that they were impressed with what IBS had accomplished with WCCO-TV's Web site in Minneapolis, Channel 4000.com. That fledgling site had achieved a substantial number of pageviews and was beginning to lure in advertisers. Channel 4000's success served as a template and IBS had launched or was in the process of launching a handful of other sites -- KCBS-TV's site, Channel 2000.com in Los Angeles, KOIN-TV's Web site, Channel 6000.com, in Portland, Ore., and WEWS-TV's site NewsNet5.com in Cleveland.

"They basically had a success story," Bier said, of IBS. "They were the experts, and (we were pleased) we could partner with the experts. We could learn from them all along."

Bier and Palser said the site's birth was the result of three to fourth months of development that included meetings and discussions with station managers, the news staff and other key departments about what the site could and should be.

In conjunction with the IB partnership -- and much to Palser's pleasure -- was the hiring of station's first Web staff: news editors Mary Jane Grenzow and Molly Thompson.

"I was really excited that we got to hire staff," she said.

Bier said that the goal for hiring the Web staff was strictly practical.

"(We wanted) people who had a vision for what may be the future of this whole venture," he said.

Thompson said that she was working as a print reporter when she saw her future.

"I worked as a reporter at a daily newspaper and I knew I was working in a dying field," she said. "I hated writing articles for tomorrow. I wanted to write about news that was happening now."

Palser said that Channel 3000's early emphasis was also on developing the Web site as a separate journalistic vehicle.

"There was a lot of independent reporting going on," Palser said. "Not exactly reporting an entire story … but Mary Jane and Molly did a lot of phone calls and following up."

Palser said that work resulted in the winning of a couple of RTNDA regional Edward R. Murrow Awards.

Both Palser and Thompson point to Bier as serving as a key guiding force throughout the site's history.

"He may not have felt visionary, but at that time, for a TV station to invest in a Web site that was more than just a brochure for the on-air talent that in itself was advanced thinking," Palser said.

"They 'got it' long before any other station -- not just in Madison -- but in the country," Thompson said. "People have the right to know information long before the 6 p.m. news."

"(As time has gone on), I've had more and more admiration and respect for the foresight he had," Palser said. "He has a really good sense of vision about where this is going and where he needs to take the site."

The redesigned site continued to grow in popularity and by May 1999, it had reached more than 1 million pageviews in a month for the first of many times. Shortly thereafter, opportunity knocked and Palser eventually made the move to an IBS job in Minneapolis.

Of course, that kind of expansion doesn't come without the occasional growing pains. Like many dot.com ventures, the site also had its dark periods, too. When the stock market crumbled and the dot.com bubble burst in 2000 and 2001, online advertising contracted significantly. Oppressive economic pressures took its toll -- taming much of the wild-eyed optimism that was almost a constant in the Web's early days. These kind of harsh realities invariably resulted in layoffs, which meant the loss of some valuable and dedicated employees.

"Those (were) rough times," Bier said. "All the projections were that this was just grow, grow, grow and the revenue was just going to grow, grow, grow. And when you have the product, you're going to get the advertisers."

He added that while budgets were tight, the use of the site continued to grow through that period

Coinciding with the start of these dark times, the responsibility for the site's direction passed on to new managing editor Thompson. She'd go on to lead the site throughout what could be politely referred to as the thin years, continuing to break new journalistic ground while essentially keeping the flame alive.

Despite the financial limitations and sometimes bleak outlook, she and Bier both said that they never wavered in their belief in the site's potential and future.

"There was never anyone around the station who ever said, 'No, let's not do this,'" he said. "We all knew the potential. We knew what we had. We knew what we started. It was sort of let's just take a breath and get through this period and see where this takes us."

Another unforeseen event underscored the power and possibilities of online news just when many were casting doubt on its future, Bier said. The online coverage of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks allowed people to stay informed when they were away from a TV during the workday and fostered the start of two-way communication between news-gathers and the audience, he said.

"(You realized) this can be pretty important," he said.

Thompson, who now works as the managing editor at a Minneapolis publishing company and is focused on creating health content for Web sites and magazines, said she was proud of C3K's coverage of key events in recent history. The Audrey Seiler case brought national attention to the Madison area and Thompson said that WISC-TV reporter Joel DeSpain was as adamant about getting the news online as he was going live on TV to report about the woman's abduction being a hoax.

She also points to WISC-TV anchor John Karcher's trips overseas in the wake of the Iraq war and his reports on the Wisconsin soldiers serving in Iraq and onboard the U.S.S. Stennis. She said Channel 3000's coverage of the experience not only linked an unfolding international event to viewers on a local level, but the site also allowed soldiers to connect with their loved ones back home. (Read stories here and here.)

"That was the best thing we ever did when I worked there," Thompson said. "It was a different view to what is happening in Iraq. Not the same 'Should we be there?' discussion. Regardless of how you feel about it, this focus was on the people, humanity. And because viewers felt they knew and loved Karcher, they listened and I think learned something, too."

The site eventually won RTNDA's regional Edward R. Murrow Award in 2005 for this coverage.

Eventually, the restrictive economic conditions eased. The national and local economy recovered from the Web's heady days and advertisers felt more comfortable as they recognized the migration of their audience online.

The site's editorial mission has continued on, embracing new technologies and seeking new ways to engage users as never before. The exploding popularity of Facebook, MySpace and YouTube also inspired strong interest in user-generated content and social networking capabilities. To answer that call, the site debuted a new video player, C3K To Go, and a user-generated video player, You Post It, in 2006.

To expand our news offerings, the site launched a Going Green Wisconsin section, Traffic section and a news aggregation portal, Channel 3000 Scanner, in the fall of 2007.

The site's peers have also taken notice. The site received an RTNDA's regional Edward R. Murrow Award for C3K's coverage of the August 2007 flooding. The site has been recognized two years in a row with a Northwest Broadcast News Association award for best local Web site and nabbed four of the Wisconsin Broadcasting Association's first-ever New Media awards this spring.

Bier said that the recent successes underscore the benefits of the station's forward-thinking beginnings in 1997-98. This birthday also marks the point in the site's growth.

"I think it's appropriate that we're 10 years old," he said. "I almost look at it like a person's life. I believe we were at it in the beginning."

Palser said that when she left in 1999, she expected the site to continue to grow and become stronger. However, with the benefit of hindsight, she said the site's success pays back the blind faith investments made in the past.

"I have better appreciation for what a triumph that was," she said. "In that last 10 years, there were a lot of challenges."

At the same time, many in recent years have sought to join the Internet bandwagon. Bier said many in the media industry's stance toward the Internet has taken a dramatic shift, repositioning themselves and making choices that WISC-TV adopted years ago.

"I think we've progressed, stayed ahead of the industry," he said. "Everyone has seen the power and potential and put a lot of money into it. We did it because we saw the audience going there. And the advertisers generally follow the audience. Now, a lot of media companies have seen that's where the advertisers going are and now they have to go there."

And as for the future, Bier said the site's potential seems every bit as promising as it did that summer a decade ago.

"You wonder how a 10-year-old is going to develop" he said. "There's a lot of development here."

As Channel 3000 continues to evolve, we maintain a singular focus -- keeping users informed and engaging them as no other medium can.

Take A Bow …

Below is a list of some of the many people who have contributed to Channel 3000 through the years:

Barb Palser
Mary Jane Grenzow
Molly Thompson
Cynthia Jansen
Andy Kruse
Will Komassa
Jennifer Streblow
Jesse Sarles
James Lockwood
Mark Maloney
Sarah Jancich
Karin Hirschey
Steve Van Dinter
Angela Bettis
Susie Taylor
Jeff Robbins
Kathy Reinhard
Mike Ceolla
Tammy Kramer
David Hyland
Adam Malecek
Adam McCarthy
Tarin Deuster
Dan Smith
Brian Howell
Brian Clark
Jill Shiroma
Wesley White
Andy Hagen
Nan Roach
Amy Smith
Monica LeClair
Schyler Sanks
Jeremy Yunis
Holly Frank
Aaron Swanum
Melissa Smith
Jeff Smith
Susan Inglis
Steve Cope
Sarah Klecatsky

And thank you! Without the thousands of viewers driving Channel 3000 forward, the site wouldn't be where it is today.