Gaia Online

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The Gaia Wing.

Gaia Online (formerly known as Go-Gaia) is an anime-inspired online forum and games site founded on February 18, 2003 by Derek Liu, Josh Gainsbrugh, Long Vo, Studio XD artists, and programmers/web designers.http://www.big-boards.com/int.php?n=60 The website is one of the largest communities on the Internet, boasting over 4 million members as of July 2006. The forums cover a number of topics, such as anime and manga, video games, current events, politics, and community events. Gaia Online also contains a RPG-like chat feature called "Gaia Towns", where users directly interact with each other through customized avatars.

Gaia revolves around three things: the avatar system, "Gaia gold" and a "plot". The avatar system contains a wide selection of items that members can use to dress up or decorate their "Gaians". These items are usually procured with "Gaia gold", the "currency" of the website, which is obtained by doing anything from participating on the forums to simply browsing the site. Gold may also be won in various promotions, such as the Avatar Arena, where users compete to see whose avatar looks the best. The plot consists of manga-style comic shorts drawn by Studio XD, and may be associated with events that members may take part in.

Traditionally, the site has relied on donations from members to stay active. However, in June 2006 it was reported that Gaia Online received nearly $9 million in venture capital funding from Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures. http://mashable.com/2006/06/19/gaia-online-gets-893m-for-anime-community/

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