Volume 2, No. 3. February 8, 2002
Eric’s Turn
Birthday
wishes
One year ago yesterday I was sitting in the media center of Disney's California
Adventure. The theme park had officially opened to the public that morning,
and after I had covered the ceremony and interviewed various guests and dignitaries,
including Art Linkletter above, I was writing the story as the final flourish
of our first edition of THE LOOP. We posted Vol. 1, No. 1 (web site page "loop001.html")
that afternoon and sent our first e-mail notification that evening to, well,
some of you. A technical glitch foiled our first notification efforts, and the
bulk of e-mails didn't get out for a few more days. But we at least accomplished
our first goal: we were officially on-line and publishing a bi-weekly newsletter,
and we did our first on the road in the wake of a major grand opening.
We've come a long way in our first year, in both style (compare that first issue
with this one) and technical expertise. We also know we still have some improving
to do. This is a work in-progress. However, many things about THE LOOP have
not changed, such as our mission to provide connection, good ideas and relevant
but fun reading to the amusement industry and our dedication to accuracy and
timeliness. Furthermore, many of the web site features we had at the beginning
are still available to you.
You can access these features by clicking on one of the gray buttons at the
top-left of this newsletter. All of the LOOP newsletters we have published are
archived and listed in chronological order, complete with a list of each publication's
content, at THE LOOP index.
The Reading Room index lists
all of the longer feature and service stories we have published to help you
run your business. Connections
is our links page, an ever-growing list of industry operators, associations
and suppliers with direct access to their own web sites (if you want to get
listed, e-mail me by clicking here).
The Staff page, formerly
called the Masthead, describes who we are and how to reach us. Advertising
takes you to a page that describes how you can place value-rich ads in THE LOOP
newsletter, take advantage of some of our special programs, like the Enhanced
New Arrivals, or become a long-term sponsor. Our ever-changing Home
page highlights the latest issue of THE LOOP (which happens to be this one you
are reading) and other special features on our web site.
This week we have added another feature page to our web site, called Help.
This is a tutorial with tips on how to navigate our web site and get the most
out of every issue of THE LOOP: past, current, and future.