I was disappointed when the FWA’s Most Infuential Flash site of the Decade poll did not include the first Flash site that really blew my mind – Gabocorp.
Rob at the FWA let me know that after 2 weeks of trying to locate Gabo, he’s finally found a version of Gabo’s 1997 site and put it online.
I remember first seeing the Gabocorp site (9 years ago!) and being blown away. At the time I was doing multimedia CD-ROM development using Visual Basic, C++ and Director. It was amazing – not only that you could achieve such smooth, seamless full-screen animations, but that that you could do it on the web! I knew I had to get into flash development.
The cinematic feel, use of sound, and seamless transitions still stand up today.
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yeah funny that you point this out… Because I was thinking the exact same thing!
I remember the old Gabocorp site too! It was also what got me into Flash at the time. It’s a shame I didn’t keep up with it. I was 17 then, so I guess my future wasn’t as important as hanging out with friends. 🙂
Does anyone remember Nagafuji.com (image dive)? It’s no longer around but it was probably the hottest site back in 98′. I can’t seem to track down an archive of the site but you can find their works at http://www.imagedive.co.jp/ They had some really innovative/dynamic flash interfaces for calendars.
It’s always nice to resurrect these types of goodies. Like some others, this was the site that inspired me to move from Director and Authorware to Flash. Keep up the archived site. 🙂
Neostream Interactive: http://www.neostream.com/ has to be the best flash for my 2 cents on the web.
Ha! ha! What a mind reader. I too was dissapointed that Gabocorp was not included in FWA’s list and started scrouing the web for any info on what he’s doing now. I’ll never forget having my mind completely blown away and dropping all 3D and Director stuff I was doing at the time and going full-bore into Flash. Now, thanks in large part to Gabo Corp’s initial inspiration, I am still plugging away in the interactive world as a CD in one of the world’s largest agencies ( Should I be thanking him? What was I thinking? LOL.)
Really, he started the craze back in the day. Thanks for finding the archived site. Wish it had his work examples, but just looking at the landing page brought back some great memories.
OH… MY… GOD!!! Thanks for reminding me of this. I remember huddling around the computer with the rest of my office mates in awe of this great new site, Gabocorp. We were blown away! We’d never seen anything like it.
Do you remember his next site? I vaguely remember it having birds, mountains, and a mysterious stranger in black. It was built like a movie trailer.
Brian Helge, Thanks for reminding me about Neostream. It DEFINITELY was one of the strongest early contenders. I believe Gabocorp predates it, but nonetheless, both are GREAT memories!!
Yes Paul, I remember the trailer very well. It was like a “coming-soon” movie trailer referred to the Gabocorp’s second site, but I think it was never developed (the second site). I think I have it in some backup cd. I saw this movie uncountable times some years ago. (sorry if my english is not good)
Salud!
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Actually, gabocorp had a different website than the one shown in the link here from 1997. The link shown here is for the second generation site. The first generation site had a bunch of demos on it in 1997. http://www.gabocorp.com. Some of the demos included the “revolver” and others. I have a video of it I took from the site via a videospigot in 1997. I was awe struck! Truth is even todays sites barelky stack up to what was possible then! The only real advance is bandwidth and Ruby on rails to use with Dreamweaver and Flash.
hola necesito informacion sobre gabocorp…ayudenme porfa quiero saber cuando comenzo, quien la creo.etc…… chris lei tu mensage y creo que sabes bastate de gabocorp si puedes conecta para que asi me pases la informcion tiuchis1989@hotmail.com soy de venezuela…..gracias……….
About seven years ago a friend of mine sent me to the gabocorp website and I was stunned and amazed at the sheer talent this man has. Gabo Mendoza was very ahead of his time. It was my privilege to be introduce to the website.
I found copy of first version Gabo’s site (Orange/grey theme) complete with samples on one of my old backup CD’s. Samples included Revolver, Orange spheres, “Photo” rendered orbs, Tetragonal object. Brings back a lot of memories when his site served as an inspiration 🙂
Can you believe that in 2011 Symantek (the Norton people) rate gabocorp.com a “serious threat” as a virus infecting website? What has the world come to?