Lawrence Ingraham’s Blog

For years I was the man behind the most popular rollerblading website, Sequencemag. The
background behind the name Sequence was that I was never able to find good sequence shots of tricks in magazines. I wanted to know what the trick was like from start to finish, not just a fool hanging in the air or standing on a rail. This was back in 1995 or so.

Sequence tapered off and I lost the passion. The messageboard continued to thrive but since I was living in Orange County now, it was more difficult to get excited about rollerblading. I mean, clthat’s all I was doing at the time. Skating with the pros, judging competitions and staring as the fifty-50.com website day in and day out. It can really take a toll on you.

A few years ago I moved back to the Bay Area and met up with an old friend Jeff Sawyer. Jeff and I used to skate back when I lived in San Jose in 1997 or so. I think I actually met him through Sequence’s messageboard, believe it or not. Jeff was really into geeky stuff as well so we got along great. So when I moved back to town I looked him up and we started talking again.

By now, Jeff had started his own skating site, havenskate.com. It’s been around for a few years and has a pretty good following of regulars. We had lunch one day and brainstormed some ideas for havenskate, some new ways we could take the site which wasn’t being done anywhere else. Jeff is a badass at php backends and making sites work, and with me being a pretty boy designer we make a great team.

See, I don’t know what it is, but most rollerblading sites are poorly designed. I don’t get it, we have such creative people in the industry making the coolest products, logos, ads etc, but they think it’s good enough to slap some photoshop file online with frames and tables and image text and call it a day. Otherwise, it’s this crazy elaborate Flash website with blinking lights and spaceship sounds. That’s not how it’s done.

I have another good friend named Naoya Wada. He and I were web design buddies back in the days. I think I got him his start, lit the match which got him into the game. Now he’s a crazy web designer doing stuff I could only dream of. Anyway, he and I met up a few years ago and talked about the state of rollerblading websites, and how crap they are. He helped me get back into the game and designed the last fifty-50.com site, quite possibly the first CSS based website in the industry. Sad that it took that long.

The point of this randomness is this. Jeff and I finally decided that after all our brainstorming, there was a need for something new. There’s a lot of crap out there and Rollerhome will bring the pain. Call it Sequence 2.0 if you like. We’re tired of messageboards and blogs getting all the traffic, bringing skaters in for a quick hit and dumping them out. There needs to be a place for skaters to live.

Here’s what we’re bringing to the table:

• RSS feeds for everything imaginable: forum posts, private messages, articles, searches, etc (you know what rss is right?)
• Real articles we actually write ourselves: product reviews, history, video premieres
• Interactive forums that are easy to read: not to mention searchable and subscribable (is that a word?)
• Exclusive video edits from events: hosted on our server, not a link from youtube
• Fully compliant html/css for those who care: works on a mobile phone, try that at other sites
• Clean design so you can actually read the pages: maybe I’m old, but I like to read things
• Live in browser chat pictures and everything: no more irc or laggy java, this actually works
• Integrated skate spot finder for learning where to skate: partnering with fifty-50.com for more spots
• Individual Profiles with private messages, image hosting, friends list etc: a myspace for rolling, without all the crap

That’s just stuff we’ll have at launch. We have a ton of great features coming down the pike I’m sure you’ll like. And of course, we’re listening closely to what you have to say. We don’t have all the answers but we have a good idea what works and what doesn’t. If you want something changed or added, we’re going to listen.

Rollerhome should be online June 1st, unless something happens between now and then. I hope you’ll take a look, sign up for an account and give it a spin. I think you’ll like it.

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