; 21 years ago 1995 07 06 headquarters glenside pennsylvania u.s. key people founder ceo tom fulp programmers josh tuttle & james holloway artist animator jeff bandelin slogan s everything by everyone . 2006 present the problems of the future today 1995 2006 website www.newgrounds.com alexa rank 3 816 may 2016 1 type of site indie games animation art and music hosting service registration optional available in english newgrounds is an american entertainment and social media website and company . founded on july 6 1995 by tom fulp the site presently hosts games movies audio and artwork in four respective hubs or portals . tom fulp remains the site s owner and still regularly produces in house content . its offices are headquartered in the glenside neighborhood of cheltenham township on the northern border of philadelphia . 2 contents 1 history 1.1 1994 1997 1.2 1998 1999 1.3 2000 2003 1.4 2004 2007 1.5 2008 2012 1.6 2013 present 2 front page 3 movie and game portals 3.1 nata 4 portals 5 rating and review system 5.1 awards 6 newgrounds forum bbs 7 ng store 8 charity 9 in the media 10 events 11 see also 12 references 13 external links history edit 1994 1997 edit in 1994 tom fulp launched a neo geo fanzine by the name new ground from the greek roots neo and geo translated into english from his parents basement in perkasie pa sending sporadic issues to around 100 members of a club on prodigy . at this time new ground was an entirely offline venue and it was not until 1995 that he decided to create his own web page naming it new ground remix to imply moving content online was the next step up in the brand s history . new ground remix had a small amount of content but did not gain a significant audience until summer of 1996 when tom created the games club a seal and assassin which brought viewers to new ground based on their notoriety . in 1997 fulp created the games club a seal ii and assassin ii and decided that he wanted a new place to host these games . he created a separate website new ground atomix for this purpose . 1998 1999 edit in early 1998 fulp began experimenting with macromedia flash . a flash front page was introduced to new ground atomix and the flash game telebubby fun land was released . later that year fulp was contacted by inside edition about doing a segment on assassin and decided he needed to give his online creations a name that would stick settling on newgrounds . he redirected traffic from both of the older new ground sites to newgrounds paying 33 per month out of pocket to host the site . fulp had to change hosts to accommodate increasing traffic and started producing t shirts in an attempt to pay off hosting fees . by 1999 traffic to newgrounds was considerable and fulp had to change hosts every few months . banner ads were introduced to pay growing hosting bills but fulp was still unable to make ends meet . the current host of the newgrounds site wanted over 1000 per month at the time and fulp was dropped by the only reliable advertisement revenue company due to the controversial content on ng . running out of options fulp partnered with troma who hosted the site in exchange for a share of ad revenue . newgrounds notoriety increased through a copyright infringement dispute with the bbc over teletubby fun land which was renamed telebubby fun land as a result . the site received global attention having been featured in yahoo internet life magazine stuff magazine internet tonight zdtv wired.com and many other media outlets . citation needed 2000 2003 edit among other changes made to the site as the years went on fulp also added a chat room and message board which allowed for an established community to build on newgrounds . many users had begun submitting their own flash creations to fulp which he showcased in a portion of the site called the portal . a friend of fulp s by the name of ross built the grounds gold system which allowed users to gain points for visiting the site . ad revenue had increased so fulp hired ross and together they started development of the automated portal . at the time fulp s creations still had the predominant placement on newgrounds front page ; the automated portal opened the floor to other artists who submitted work that would soon surpass his own . newgrounds was formed into the first flash showcase site of this type citation needed through this change in content focus from fulp s own work to that of other flash artists though he continued to produce content of his own . the newgrounds tank logo was introduced in 2000 and has been a mainstay for newgrounds brand identity ever since . in the years that followed the dot com bubble had collapsed and newgrounds struggled to stay afloat while other entertainment websites soon went out of business ; ad revenue was slow to come in and hosting equipment needed to be upgraded as servers could not support the traffic . in 2002 a friend of fulp s overhauled the site s php infrastructure to improve its slow performance and troma allowed them to upgrade their servers although their affiliation came to an end in 2003 ; hosting costs overall were significantly reduced once hosting was switched to a different bandwidth provider . the audio portal and multi authorship system were introduced in this year and the termination of the troma contract gave fulp s team full control of newgrounds servers which ultimately resulted in moving them from troma s original placement in new york city to a facility in philadelphia . options were also being considered for establishing a full time office in the same city which was eventually secured in the glenside area in subsequent years . 2004 2007 edit 2004 saw some fiscal recovery from the online market crash as well as the beginning of the time trials on newgrounds which were collaborative animation competitions revolving around a central theme on a tight deadline which soon came to be known as the ng collab . the audio portal showcase on the front page was also debuted . the numa numa dance viral phenomenon made its debut on newgrounds near the end of the year roughly a year before youtube was launched becoming one of the first viral videos to be known to the general public . in 2005 fulp made two guest appearances on attack of the show and a head office for newgrounds was procured in glenside . plans for a major overhaul of the site using css were underway through 2006 ; the newgrounds tank logo was redesigned and the site s slogan was changed from the problems of the future today to everything by everyone . the flash and audio portals were given a more unified design with voting and reviews made to be common to both and to compensate for the need for an art portal until the sitewide overhaul was complete the art forum was launched . the initiating stages for the ng store and merchandising aspect of the site were also seen in 2006 . the main focus of newgrounds staff in 2007 was the site redesign a significant portion of which was launched on july 16 introducing the unified flash and audio portals as well as overhauled user spaces granting each user their own page instead of a basic profile . the user movie game of the year and tank trophy awards debuted and the ng store was launched . an api toolset for newgrounds was in development and would eventually allow ads in game achievements and other features to be run within flash content introducing a way for flash artists to gather revenue and to better integrate their creations with newgrounds as a site . 2008 2012 edit in 2008 tweaks to the newgrounds api were ongoing allowing for a revenue splitting feature that allowed collaborating authors to determine revenue shares from flash ads by percentage . genre selections and tags for submitted movies and games were implemented . the ng store was redesigned from scratch as it had not been performing well since its initial launch . medals the equivalent of in game achievements were introduced for the first time through the api in 2009 soon followed by a sharing component that would allow user generated content to be distributed within games such as custom level designs . the art portal in its complete form was launched in june 2009 . work through 2010 and 2011 continued on aspects of the site redesign until its complete launch on february 7 2012 . features implemented included an improved browsing interface and a project system to help users better manage their submitted content . newgrounds also published their first mobile game titled groundcats through the app store in 2012 . as 2012 progressed major changes included the launch of the video player allowing users to publish movies that were not in . swf format for the first time and support for html5 coded games which meant users were no longer limited to submitting movies and games made in flash . a 12 month ad free subscription option was also introduced at a price of 25 but the ng store had been shut down in the first half of the year . 2013 present edit this section is missing information about history from 2013 present . please expand the section to include this information . further details may exist on the talk page . february 2016 front page edit the home page of newgrounds displays a showcase of the weekly and monthly top scoring submissions on the site for the movie game and art portals as well as a newsfeed of posts from founder tom fulp . menus to access a wider array of submissions for every portal are shown across the top banner of the site allowing to browse based on popularity and date of submission . the newgrounds main page in may 2014 . a user has logged in to this website . movie and game portals edit originally named the flash portal until newgrounds began accepting non flash animations the movie portal is a hub for newgrounds users to submit watchable content . registered users can submit new movies either in the format of a . swf flash file or as a video file . mov . mp4 etc. ; several types are acceptable 3 . the game portal is a similar section of the site intended for users to submit games to newgrounds . in recent years as with the renamed and repurposed movie portal the game portal has expanded its range of accepted content to games built in html5 unity3d and twine in addition to flash games . nata edit beginning in 2011 the newgrounds annual tournament of animation nata began as a 4 6 month long animation competition on newgrounds sponsored by both adobe and tom fulp . nata 2012 concluded in early october and the prizes totaled at 2 500 in cash rewards as well as adobe design software for the champion . 4 the competition pits animators against each other through scored rounds where the animators have a certain amount of time to complete their entry . entries are scored by a panel of judges in five categories artwork 4 points animation 4 points originality 4 points structure 4 points and entertainment 4 points . points from each judge tally up to a total of 20 possible points . with five judges the total points possible for an entry is 100 points . 5 portals edit the art portal is the section of the site reserved for posting works of visual art and graphic