When the original SoFurry launched at the end of 2009 there was a certain amount of displeasure with the new site. Despite this, the user count more than doubled, and by June 2011 SoFurry had over 150 000 users. Staff then launched the SoFurry 2.0 beta, an attempt to completely redo SoFurry, improving the code and addressing user complaints.

During the seven-month beta period, there were regular bug fixes (and a public list of upcoming features). This wasn't limited to submitted bugs; SoFurry owner Toumal also responded to criticisms about the site, for example on Chipotle's review of furry story sites. The project was not without problems, however, and the site at one point seemed to face copyright challenges concerning part of it's code, namely for the chat feature.

The team worked hard and on 23 January, after about three days of down time, SoFurry was reborn. I took the time to ask Toumal a few questions regarding its development and future.

SoFurry lost its custom chat last weekend after a key developer responded to a ban by filing a copyright-based takedown demand. [Conan/vivisector]

Site leader Toumal responded with assurances that a new chat module would be provided, and made a call for donations. A temporary chat has since been implemented.

Way back in May 2006, I wrote a little piece called “The State of the Furry Zine.”
This is a somewhat informal update to that survey.

No matter what kind of work you create, thought needs to go into where you’ll publish it. Writers have more to consider; each site handles text differently. Print publications still carry a different weight for writing, as do e-books; there’s a quantifiable difference between having your story read as a Fur Affinity post versus on a Kindle. But has the web won?

Fur Affinity recently announced a restructuring and increase in staffing. On the main site, staff acknowledged "administrator inaction, bias, and a lack of accountability" but assured users that they "truly want to fix the issues, and [are] working toward a better Fur Affinity."

To see whether this change is going to be enough to improve Fur Affinity, I want to compare the administration structures of the three main furry art sites – Fur Affinity (FA), SoFurry (SF) and Inkbunny (IB) – plus a few details from commercial alternative deviantART (DA).

At the end of 2009, Yiffstar was relaunched with 'completely new code' as SoFurry. Reactions were not entirely positive; the forum was horrible to use, and the main site had numerous performance and navigational issues, though speed improved over time.

In April 2010, work began on SoFurry 2.0, originally planned to release in first quarter 2011. As time passed, various previews of the new Espresso theme were released and covered by both Flayrah and FNN – the latter reporting on SoFurry's 150,000-user mark by interviewing SoFurry owner Toumal and lead designer Alex Vance.

On 8 July, Toumal announced a public beta of SoFurry 2.0, running in parallel with SoFurry 1.0 for 'some time'. The beta launched today, albeit without chat.

In stark contrast, Fur Affinity's plans for new software, Ferrox, were announced in 2006, but stalled in 2009. Since then, the site has been plagued with coding problems.

Alex Vance has revealed a preview of the SoFurry 2.0 interface.

SoFurry is the sequel to furry porn site Yiffstar and was released at the end of 2009. However the user interface was not popular with users. Work began on SoFurry 2.0 in April 2010.

SoFurry 2.0 is not yet available generally, but is scheduled for release in first quarter 2011.

SoFurry's latest contest covers the last part of the site's content: music.

Competitors must remix or cover music from 8-bit games Super Mario, Tetris or Mega Man. The prize is the portable Korg Kaossilator.

Any style or medium of music is permitted. Source/proof of performance is required; only new material will be accepted. Entries must be up by 7 May.

Toumal appears to be outdoing past prizes – the Kaossilator sells for US$135.

Users of SoFurry and its predecessor Yiffstar are being told to change their passwords, as the site's MD5 hashes have been compromised. [gsw/furryne.ws]

Toumal admitted the site had been vulnerable for the past eighteen months, but said the "security hole" had been fixed. New passwords will be salted to reduce the damage of any future breach. He also cautioned against using the same password on different sites.

SoFurry is running an adult short story contest. The topic is endangered animals — specifically, tigers, rhinos and giant pandas.

Entries must prominently feature at least one of the selected species in a sexual situation, and preferably all three.

One story of roughly 2500 to 10,000 words may be entered per person; it must be submitted to the site with the keyword EnSpContest by March 20. The winner will receive a box of Austrian "Mirabell Mozardkugel" (chocolate and marzipan balls) from site admin Toumal.

The site previously ran a Valentine's Day competition, accepting tame and adult artwork in black, white, and red. The winning work was by Cyran.

Despite recent downtime, furry community site Fur Affinity grew significantly in 2009, according to figures released by The Dragoneer this month.

Over 120,000 users joined the site; almost double that were active during the year, making over a million submissions. Users also made over 400,000 posts on their personal journals, garnering 3.5 million comments.

Fur Affinity's success has come at a cost for other sites, who have found traffic stagnating. The VCL in particular has lost ground, while Yiffstar recently relaunched itself as SoFurry in an attempt to attract new users. Fur Affinity also plans to move to a new layout.

For a site as large as FA, reported annual operating costs are relatively small at $14,231.76; donations and advertisements raised $13,943.79.