Did anybody bother to check our
About Us page?
We have always been straightforward about our origins. The project started in
'94 as a web awards, culminating that year in a presentation at the International W3C Conference in Geneva. We have never tried to hide our beginnings - we display a link to the archives of the awards in the footer of every page on the directory. We are extremely proud of our lineage, and have
never acted otherwise.
The original classification of the direcotry was based around a best of class categorization. Seeing the commercial opportunities of a comprehensive directory, the growth has gone that route since '02. The infrastructure was built out (by hand, not an off the shelf script), and the reclassification begun, late '02.
The '94 / '96 discrepancy is based upon the fact that for the first two years, the site was hosted off of the University of Buffalo's website (as it was originally a project started by UoB professors).
I hope that clarifies any misunderstanding that may have arisen from this ill-researched post.