The Life and Times of the Dawgvent, episode four

This is the fourth of nine chapters in the history of the Dawgvent, with all its twists and turns. From a handful of football-loving computer geeks to an influential media member, this is the story of the worldwide leader in Georgia Bulldog reporting. Adapted from the book Sax Attacks, by Rob Suggs.

At one time, America Online and Prodigy were the most common “training wheels” for learning to steer and navigate the new vehicle known as the Web. These offered a bit more sophistication, including discussion forums.

The Prodigy service, founded way back in 1984, had a lively Georgia Bulldog section, and a small cluster of its online yakkers later brought their dialogue to the Dawgvent. America Online, oddly enough, had little Bulldog action.

Hard as it is to imagine, in those days, hardly anybody on the Internet bought anything. The Internet, everyone agreed, wasn’t for buying and selling! In a classic bit of Newsweek prophecy of 1995, on the now hilarious subject of why the Internet was doomed to fail, the author wrote:

Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obsolete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month?

I know, right? Remember “shopping malls”?

Later, the author observed, “A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee.”

He never came out and said, “You kids get off my lawn!” but he would have been surprised by the “chat lines” to come and the global economic power of Amazon.com.

In the nineties, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a popular feature called “The Vent.” It had this same goal of giving readers a “signature,” a way to get in on the act, though on any and every subject, rather than simply sports. Readers sent in one-line “vents” about bad traffic spots or rude cashiers or poor play by the Braves’ shortstop. Just venting. It was surprising to editors how many readers enjoyed seeing these random, one-line complaints from ordinary people.

It seemed to Jason that what he had with his site was a digital “Vent,” a place where Georgia fans could share their two cents’ worth, while keeping the two cents in their pockets. Another reality: In ‘96, the year of the Vent’s inception, the Georgia Bulldogs were nobody’s idea of a football dynasty. It was Jim Donnan’s first year as head coach, as well as the last year, up to the present, that the team didn’t attend a bowl. So you didn't enthuse about Georgia football. You didn't discuss or speculate. You vented. Just bringing the facts.

Losing at home to Southern Miss to start the season? Who didn’t have a verbal brickbat for that one?

Losing by 40 to Steve Spurrier in Jacksonville? Now you could express your emotions over that indignity without having to take on the persona of “Raging Rufus from Snellville” on the call-in show.

Twenty years later, the forum might have been given a different name, one that didn’t brand it as a gripe-fest. There’s a notable drop in “venting” after back-to-back national championships. But it’s the Dawgvent now, henceforth, and forever.

In these early days, people were posting on the Dawgvent as they did on the AJC Vent: in one-line shots, a little more like today’s Twitter. Quickly that grew old; “guestbook” technology wasn’t cutting it. But Jason (known as DM, DawgMaster, on his board) was on the job, and soon he found CGI-scripted (Common Gateway Interface) message board code that was publicly available as a resource for Internet forums.

This caused some excitement: paragraphs! What will technology do next? Now you could vent and vent some more about the defensive stylings of Joe Kines, or whether that Bobo kid would ever muscle up his noodle arm.

Remember, this whole world of activity and interaction was transpiring on a server on the office network of Jason Brooks, in the back, in the booth, in the corner, in the dark. He hosted a fabulous, wide-ranging conversation among people from all over the world who were Georgia Bulldog fans, all in a little box hardly anyone noticed. Lifelong friendships were being made. Legendary poster brands were being created. This was Jason's baby, that baby was growing out of its crib, and it was time to move.

This is where the “Centurion” part of the obscure “pluto-centurion,” known to Vent-lore aficionados, comes from. Jason’s friend ran a business called Centurion Systems, and he offered to host the server on his network. Pluto.centurionsys.com became the address of the Dawgvent.

The friend was glad to do it, since it seemed like a small favor.

He had no idea what other-worldly forces he had unleashed.

Next: Birth of a (Dawg)nation

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three