Reptile Dot Com Adopts Online Community

OnlineHobbyist.com, Inc., an Austin based builder of online communities, announced today that it is now the new home of the Pet Care Forum, one of the oldest online pet owner communities.

OnlineHobbyist.com, Inc., an Austin based builder of online communities,

announced today that it is now the new home of the Pet Care Forum, one of

the oldest online pet owner communities.

The Pet Care forum - created and supported by the Veterinary Information

Network(R) (www.vin.com), the largest online community and information

service for veterinarians - had its home on America Online(R) from 1990

until 2000, and has been on the web at www.vin.com/Petcare since then.

Paul D. Pion, DVM, a board-certified veterinary cardiologist, co-founder

and president of the Veterinary Information Network (VIN), said, "Our

increased focus on veterinary professionals decreased the time and

energy we had for our pet owner communities. This would have kept them

from thriving. Rather than abandon our friends in The Pet Care Forum

by closing the communities, we found a new home for them. We are

pleased that OnlineHobbyist.com is adopting The Pet Care Forum."

VIN will remain active providing services for pet owners online through

the VeterinaryPartner.com and Vetquest.com sites. These sites

are more in line with VIN's mission -- to directly serve the needs of

veterinarians, their staff, their patients, and their clients.

OnlineHobbyist.com, Inc., is very familiar with online communities

for pet owners. It launched its kingsnake.com community in 1997.

Kingsnake.com, long recognized as the largest and most popular

reptile and amphibian owners' community and one of the most

popular pet sites on the internet, is based on a similar feature

format as VIN's Pet Care Forum.

"VIN's Pet Care Forum is truly one of the pioneers in online

community building and we have learned a lot from watching it grow

over the past 12 years," said OnlineHobbyist.com, Inc., CEO Jeff Barringer.

"This is good for all the entities involved," added Barringer. "VIN succeeds

with a membership model while our model is advertising and sponsorship based.

VIN did not believe Pet Care Forum would succeed with a pay for access model

and VIN did not wish to pursue a purely advertising model for Pet Care Forum.

In the end, everyone wins because Pet Care Forum staff and users can

continue to watch their community grow and flourish and maintain

the friendships they have established over the years."

Operating under the PetHobbyist.com umbrella, the new communities

offer many of the same features and functions of the former Pet Care Forum

site. "We have made massive overhauls to our hardware and software

systems to accommodate the increase in users and traffic," said Barringer.

"We have also gone from 13 to almost 90 staff and volunteers worldwide."

Kingsnake.com - just one section of PetHobbyist.com - has over

5 million documents and images online, requires its own server farm,

and generates close to 30,000,000 page views per month. Kingsnake.com,

an unfunded dotcom, survived the Internet bubble due to the hard work of its

staff, users, and sponsors said Barringer. "Our success is measured by our

continued growth in traffic, users, and advertisers. We have seen our revenues

grow steadily over the past 24 months. With the addition of the Pet Care Forum

community, we anticipate that to ramp up rapidly. We aren't seeing the same

downturn in Internet advertising that the mainstream portals have seen.

We also offer a lot more than just banner ads."

About OnlineHobbyist:

A privately held corporation, OnlineHobbyist.com, Inc., was formed in

September, 1999, based on the assets of the former kingsnake.com

publications. OnlineHobbyist, a builder of virtual communities, is located

in the Silicon Hills of Austin, Texas, and currently specializes in communities

for pet owners.

Contact:

Jeff Barringer - jeffb@kingsnake.com

OnlineHobbyist.com, Inc.

508 East Howard Lane #25

Austin, Texas 78753

Contact:

Paul D. Pion, DVM, ACVIM

Veterinary Information Network, Inc.

777 West Covell Blvd, Davis, CA 95616

(800)700-4636