XDA-Developers, the history pt. 1

Are you curious to know how all this started? Well, prepare yourself for a journey into the history of how XDA-Developers was born and how we arrived at where we are now. In this series of articles, we will be talking with some of the oldest members, moderators and administrators who will let us know how it all began.

The original team

Back in 2003 in the back yard of a small house situated in Amsterdam a group of enthusiasts started in depth testing on pocket pc´s, smartphones and other PDA devices.

Peter Poelman and itsme (undoubtedly there were more people involved, but these are the 2 I know for sure started xda-dev) were the first real initiators of XDA development. At that time, none of them would have imagined they would go on to create a small and humble site that would grow into the phenomenon it is today. After initial experimentation, they decided to launch a site especially designed for other developers around the world who could join them in testing/tweaking/modifying and generally improving the usability of their chosen devices. They decided to name the site XDA-DEVELOPERS, following their work with the devices made by the High Tech Computer Corporation (hTC ), who were pioneers in manufacturing PDA-phones. A leading seller of these phones was O2 who branded these phones as XDAs, PDAs with “Xtra” functions.

As the site became bigger and membership grew, other problems appeared including how to maintain control and order amongst almost 100,000 Members by 2006. The initial moderator team was composed of: vijay555, HDuser, buzz_lightyear, mikechannon and many others under the guidance of Itsme, they maintained and administered the site. A dedicated Administrator, Flar was appointed in 2006 as the site now demanded a level of administration that could not be delivered by the owners on a part-time basis in addition to their full-time jobs.

Quote from mikechannon

It was these early O2 XDA devices that the founders of our site thought had much more potential than the sellers 02 and HTC were giving them credit for. With their geeky hats on they cracked them open and began to develop them beyond the standard fairly boring branded versions. To spread the word, they set up a small website and naturally called it xda-developers. In the early days they had less than a dozen members (2003).

.... and look where we are now!!

People from all around the globe were finding XDA from their internet searches, fed by the hunger to take their devices to another level and to extract the last bit of juice of functionality and usability from their phones.

This is how the site look back in 2003

2003

So, 5 years later and we arrived at 2008 and by this time the site had already exceeded 100,000 active members and the original creators saw that this was not only interesting for developers, it was also a primary resource for end users as well. Membership has continued to grow at the speed of light, much more than anyone on the admin team had expected. In late 2009, site administration changed and it was recognized that it was time for new and fresh ideas on how XDA would move into the future. The first non HTC devices appeared and the Android OS was included, breaking the tradition of catering only for HTC phones and the Windows Mobile OS.

Now in 2010, seven years after XDA was created, we stand as a reference point in the mobile world. XDA is now a truly international site operating on a global scale, having more than 501,449 threads, 7,594,515 posts and more than 2,811,152 members. Creating these incredible numbers, is a daily average of over 10,000 members.

Still to come in this series, is an interview with XDA forum admin mikechannon, other developers & chefs and a second part from the perspective of our newest young News Writer, Captainkrtek.

Stay tuned and let us know what you think by leaving a comment. Thanks!

Special thanks for the writing of this article to Flar and mikechannon

Pictures provided by TheATHEiST, thanks!