History
The idea of
"LetsKrong" began sometime during the 2003-2004 academic
year at Colgate
University, a small liberal arts institution located in Hamilton,
NY. Several members of the Colgate Men's Cross-Country
/ Track
& Field team regularly visited LetsRun.com
and it's world famous message
boards. At some point during the year Kyle Barrett, a crafty
young man from Lansingburg,
NY, coined the term "LetsKrong." In a spring 2004
interview, Kyle commented that he was going to join the "LetsKrong
marathon training enclave in Amsterdam" after graduating from
Colgate.
Lets-Krong was
not the first website designed by Jake Krong. In high school he
designed the official website for the Amsterdam XC/Track teams (AHS
Ram Express), and during his Freshman year at Colgate he ascended
to "webmaster" status with the "Unofficial Colgate
XC/Track Website."
Growth
Jake began working
on the first version of the site in June 2004. This initial version
was only updated for approximately 4 weeks. The bright spot from
the summer 2004 project was a video of Sievert's
Sporting Goods, set to music from the hit film Pirates
of the Caribbean. The site's design was fundamentally different
(gray background, menu bar on right side of page, no logo) than
what came to be the standard layout. By August it was deleted, and
another LetsKrong website did not materialize during the 2004-2005
academic
year, possibly due to the incredible amount of time all residents
of Parker 207 spent on the LetsRun.com Message Boards and e-mailing
people such as Joe Martinez and Heavy
Eric.
The original design
May 2005 marked
a new beginning for the site. Jake re-launched the site, this time
using a layout identical to LetsRun.com. The site was hosted on
a Colgate University web server under the people.colgate.edu domain.
Content varied from original articles to random links from the web.
Robert and Weldon Johnson featured LetsKrong on the home page of
their site in June 2005 (see image blelow). The site was consistently
updated throughout the summer and fall of 2005, and even branched
out to include the official homepage of Flying Reiners Basketball.
Around Halloween of 2005 (when
Wejo and Rojo were invited to the Townhouse 5A Hallomeehan party)
the site received over 1000 hits per day. Popular features of LetsKrong
included "Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down." Letters to Santa, and
the weekly "To Do list." The to-do list was the first
official collaboration between Lets-Krong and Curranstat, as Sean
Curran often took responsibility for updating the markerboard.
LetsRun links LetsKrong
2005 Tour Highlights
Disaster struck
in January of 2006 when Jake accidentally
deleted the "index.htm" page of LetsKrong.com while
re-designing the Flying Reiners website. Due to the layout of the
site (everything was stored on one page), much of the content was
gone. Jake knew he had come too far to give up, so he began a massive
salvaging operation and restored everything possible. The site continued
to do well through the winter and spring of 2006, as new content
such as original interviews and an interactive awards night ballot
were added. Link: LetsKrong
on people.colgate.edu
In May 2006,
with graduation on the horizon, Jake was forced to close the doors
on LetsKrong, as access to free Colgate webspace would eventually
expire. As of summer 2007, access to the Colgate server has been
turned off, but the old version of the site still remains on the
server. At that point the third version of LetsKrong was launched:
LetsKrong dot blog.
The blog was hosted by Google Blogger and was updated almost every
week from May to December of 2006.
November 12,
2006 marked perhaps the most important day in the history of the
site. On this day Jake purchased
the domain Lets-Krong.com. The dash was added because the "LetsKrong.com"
domain had already been purchased
by Navigation Catalyst
Systems. Although his inner circle was aware that Lets-Krong
was going to become a reality once again, on December 2, 2006, Jake
publically
announced (via LetsKrong dot blog) that Lets-Krong.com would
go live on January 1, 2007, just as the clock struck midnight.
The first six
months have exceeded most expectations. The Daily News has emerged
as an every-other-day update, and the message boards were an unexpected
phenomenon that continue to go strong. Live Chat sessions have attracted
over a dozen visitors each. Regular columns by Adam Forman and semi-regular
columns by Jeff Tufts have added a unique perspective to the site.
The "tabbed" navigation system on the main page was the
first major departure from the LetsRun page design. A summer 2007
logo redesign is the first of several cosmetic improvements to the
site. The improvements are aimed to modernize without completely
moving away from the site's foundation.
LetsRun links Lets-Krong again
Acquisitions
and Partnerships
The domain name
"Lets-Krong.com" was purchased via GoDaddy.com
on November 12, 2006. The site is currently hosted on a remote server,
but there is an effort underway to host the site on a dedicated
Lets-Krong server.
Lets-Krong.com,
itself a "spinoff" of LetsRun.com, has a history of affiliation
with other spinoff sites. The most notable affiliations have been
with the websites of two of Jake's college roommates, Sean Curran
and Nate Rosenthal. Sean's website (Curranstat, based on Dyestat)
and Nate's website (Nateshots, based on Webshots) were also hosted
on a Colgate server prior to graduation. Recently, Nate has acquired
the domain name NateRosenthal.com
and launched a new generation of NateShots. Sean also switched to
a blog format in the summer of 2006, but became disillusioned with
the blogosphere after switching servers on two occassions. Recently
he has acquired the Curranstat.com
domain and launched a version of the site similar in format to the
original Curranstat, but with a different color scheme. Update:
As of June 2007, CurranStat and Lets-Krong
have formed an official partnership - See "Merger with CurranStat"
below.
Lets-Krong.com
has also been affiliated with The Forman Times, The Official Website
of Luke Merkel, and The Chronicles of Brett Merkel. Unfortunately,
these sites are no longer updated.
During the 2005-2006
Colgate Intramural Basketball season, Lets-Krong had an official
partnership with the Flying Reiners Basketball Club. Several highlight
videos from the games are hosted on Lets-Krong.com.
Merger
with CurranStat
On May 28, 2007,
Jake and Sean Curran began discussing the possibility of a Lets-Krong
/ CurranStat merger. Within an hour an agreement had been reached
- Lets-Krong would acquire CurranStat and host it as a subdomain.
CurranStat, however, would still operate as an independent site.
The official announcment of the merger was made on June 21, 2007.
Criticisms
and Controversy
As it has grown,
Lets-Krong.com has found itself at the center of various controversies
related to it's content and inspiration. Jake fully acknowledges
that his site is a spinoff of LetsRun.com, and Wejo gave Jake his
blessing via email in 2005, stating that "imitation is the
highest form of compliment."
Some fans expressed
concern that Lets-Krong.com lacked credibility in terms of the accuracy
of their reporting when Jake falsely led readers to believe that
he attended the 2005 Tour de France. Jake did not travel to France,
and ended up apologizing to fans several weeks later.
Jake pretending to update from France
Xavier de Boissezon's
"Competition Theory of Websites" has been applied to the
relationship among Lets-Krong, Curranstat, and Nateshots. While
the founders of the websites remain close friends, some have wondered
whether the entire reason for the existence of these sites is so
they can "one-up" eachother. This appears to be a bit
of an overstatement, as the competitive synergy
created by this web triangle has pushed all three sites to higher
levels. Update: As
of June 2007, CurranStat and Lets-Krong have formed an official
partnership, debunking Xavier's theory that the sites are in competition
with one another. Nateshots has not been updated in nearly 7 months,
debunking Krong's theory that competition pushes all three sites
to greatness.
Production
Technology
Versions 1.0
and 2.0 of Lets-Krong, as well as the Unofficial Colgate XC/Track
website, were created using Microsoft
Frontpage. All pages were coded in HMTL.
Version 3.0 (LetsKrong dot blog) was created using Blogger software.
The new Lets-Krong.com
is designed in Macromedia
Dreamweaver MX and is XML
compliant. The site utilizes CSS (Cascading
Style Sheets), Javascript,
and also incorporates Flash
media.
Services
Lets-Krong.com
provides news updates several times a week on subjects including
(but not limited to) distance running, basketball, television, and
humor. Visitors are encouraged to submit content for publication.
The site provides photo galleries, videos, and exclusive columns.
The latest version of Lets-Krong.com also features a message board
and chat room where visitors can interact and building lasting virtual
relationships.
Executive Team
Jake Krong
Early
Life
Jake
was born in California
but grew up in Amsterdam,
NY. He attended Amsterdam
High School with basketball aspirations, but lost interest (and
playing time) during his junior year. He to XC/Track, and first
visited LetsRun.com sometime during his senior year.
Education
Jake
graduated from Colgate University in 2006 with a degree in Biology.
He is currently working on his Master's degree in Biomechanics
at the University
of Delaware, located in Newark,
DE.
Interests
Running,
24,
Lance
Armstrong, high mileage, LOST,
karaoke,
Jimmy
Buffett, internet,
LetsRun, Michael
Jordan, Scottie
Pippen, Steve
Kerr, American marathoners, Steve
Nash, Paula
Radcliffe, Alan
Webb, Bob
Kennedy, Cycling,
Jericho,
anatomy
& physiology,
biomechanics,
acid rain,
Olympics,
Doug
Flutie, Bruce
Springsteen, Bon
Jovi, Jukebox
Jay and Pedro, anti-doping
organizations, doubles, Jesse James, mascots,
The Onion,
The Office,
Sports Blogs,
Living the Dream
Sean Curran
Sean Curran
is the creator of CurranStat, a division of Lets-Krong. You can
read more about Sean and his website here.
|
Elkton, MD 
+$17.75 (2007)
