MeetWNY was born from joining in on the chat room while watching Today in WNY on channel 2 (WGRZ). Everyone there enjoyed the chat and were disappointed that it ended after each hour and was not available on the weekends. At first thought, I decided on a quest to make a chat room available after that show ended where viewers could go and continue their discussions. It was when I was about half done with the first chat room that I realized "Why stop there?". So, MeetWNY was born. My intention is to have multiple chat rooms that open and close themselves timed around TV shows, sporting events, political debates and whatever we in WNY have an interest in.

This will never be MySpace or Facebook. It's that way for a reason. We ask for very little information about you and we give you little in the way of creating a profile. I think it's better that way.

We will be adding features regularly. All will be aimed at making communication between people interested in Western New York easier and more enjoyable.

Please, enjoy the site and feel free to email me at depewrick@meetwny.com with any questions, problems or suggestions relating to our new site.

MeetWNY uses the following OpenSource components:

• phpFreeChat by Stephane Gully which can be found at http://www.phpfreechat.net
• QuickCaptcha 1.0 by Web 1 Marketing, Inc.
• Silk icon set 1.3 by Mark James which can be found at http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/

Rick Mentecky