• Removed banner ad!

Leading up to this move was SpiceNews consolidation. I had quite a mess, with different versions of the website backed up on various CDs, DVDs, and computers. I took what was about 7 different versions of SpiceNews, along with the online site, and merged it all into one thing, so the master version of SpiceNews is all together now in one place as it should be, and synced to online. Basically, shit is in proper order now. Unfortunately, this consolidation did not uncover some lost pictures from the earlier days of SpiceNews, for which I'll create a more detailed post in the future.

The site has also transitioned at this point to being presented as a Spice Girls news/history archive. The main page is now an introduction, featuring one of 36 random Spice Girls pictures!

There's not going to be a lot of active work on the site, but it should slowly improve over the coming years. There's many things on the to-do list: The site needs to go on a file diet, uploading the 1997 news archives (yes, they have been found!), various fixes, and essentially a potential re-write of the website code, including switching to a database system, etc.

The old email addresses are also gone (spammed-out), so there is new contact information on the email page.

That is all, hope you have a great 2012!

• Added EmilyStrange (my beautiful girlfriend) to the about page, as she posted about 15 or so SpiceNews stories this past fall/early winter.

1st Place - Charmaine Chan - www.chardudett.com

2nd Place - Charmaine Chan/Martin Angulo:

3rd Place - Roberto Corona Contreras - www.vipiquique.cl:

4th Place - philip:

5th Place - Fighter:

6th Place - Kane:

7th Place - Jeremy Juarez - www.jeremyjuarez.com:

8th Place - Lucio Martin Tirao:

9th Place - Lucio Martin Tirao:

10th Place - Andres:

11th Place - Omar:

12th Place - Trey Walls - www.lonestarspice.com:

13th Place - Lucio Martin Tirao:

14th Place - Lucio Martin Tirao:

15th Place - Ben:

16th Place - Steven:

17th Place - Carlos (Carly G):

18th Place - Ben:

I need your help! I have been unable to contact Chelly Palisoc, the author of the current logo, so as before, a logo contest shall be run! Whoever wins gets their name (or whatever they want) in the alt tag of the image (what will show up if you mouse over it in Internet Explorer for example), as well as the prestige of being the one responsible for the SpiceNews logo ;-) Now, don't get *too* excited about freedom of design, because I'm not redesigning the site, I like the way it looks, frankly. So what I'm looking for is a logo with the same color scheme as the current one, except with 5 girls instead of 4. Here are the requirements:

• Must include all 5 Spice Girls
• No blonde Victoria
• Classic Spice Girls are fine, though more modern ones are ok too. I might request you do one for the reunion and one classic one for the future actually :P
• Must be of the same color scheme as the current logo, or have a blue haze, or fit into the site design (any of these)
• Doesn't have to have that dot in between Spice and News, don't really know what that is there for in the first place.
• Must be the same dimentions (486x116), and keep it under 50kb. Well, unless you can prove to me that making it wider still looks good.

So, you can bet your bottom dollar that this site will have the latest news one way or another as I am dedicated to that cause. I also hope to implement some new technology into the site, like RSS and finally getting around to using a database system/adding the all important search feature.

It's pretty cool to see the Spice Girls back together again, and is totally nostalgic to be updating SpiceNews again. Welcome back everybody to the site, and welcome back Spice Girls!

It's been a great 4 years and 3 months of SpiceNews.com The entire SpiceNews team would like to deeply thank all of you, the visitors, that came and read the news, and shared your love for the Spice Girls with us. SpiceNews wouldn't be anything without you. We feel as though we have a connection with all of you and it's sad that this ride has come to an end, but it'll always be a great memory. And of course a big thanks to Spice Girls for all the great times, we'll never forget you.

Today marks the end of updates to SpiceNews, but the site will continue to live on as the biggest and most detailed archive of Spice Girls news in the world. If you are interested in continuing to follow the solo careers and lives of Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm, and Geri Halliwell, a new project has been started for this purpose by the current SpiceNews team + new talent - SoloSpiceNews.com

1. It's not Spice News. That's why we wouldn't report about it in the first place.
2. The SpiceWar-website encourages fans to send emails to The Sun. Until now, they are said to have sent 5000 emails which I would simply call flooding their mailbox - poor people at The Sun HQ who have to sort all this junk out. There is no way SpiceNews could support this.
3. It makes no sense (at least in my opinion)

So I strongly advise people to get over their naive views, you can't change the showbiz with a few emails! Furthermore, it only takes the Spice Girls to come back to prove them wrong...

First of all I'd like to say that I have nothing against Geri, I like her stuff (Scream If You Wanna Go Faster has some decent tracks on, like Feels Like Sex & SIYWGF which have both grown on me very much). But it's not a question of being bitter that she left or "pretending she never was a Spice Girl".

The purpose of SpiceNews.com is to provide people with news of the group Spice Girls. As we all know, Geri left the group so she is no longer a part of it. Now since there is no group news to report, we have no other choice than concentrating on the Spice Girls' solo work, but Geri is NOT a Spice Girl anymore, so there is no good reason for posting news about her - doing so would be pretending she never left. You will never see what Michelle Stephenson is currently doing either (which we would have to report if we were posting about ex-spices as well). So I hope you guys will understand it now, or at least accept it :)

Please give her a nice welcome! Angie can be reached at ahung@spicenews.com

So I decided to stop doing this because I don't really get enjoyment out of it anymore, I simply do not care about non-Spice Girls activity all that much. I figured "ok, I'll keep posting while I do the 96 & 97 archives and then I'll be done with it", but as you can see I can barely bring myself to update the site once a week even. So instead of kidding myself, I'm just going to stop updating it now. It's kind of sad, to not be updating this site, but I'm just not caring about solo much at all like I said. There's lots of other stuff I want to do in my life and if I see updating this site as a task instead of a hobby it becomes something that is less likely to happen.

What Now?
This doesn't mean an end to SpiceNews. I didn't start this site, and I don't feel like I have the right to end it. It was my site for three years, but has not been solely mine for the past few months. The other four people(three now, one new person to be announced soon) updating the site will continue to do so. I might even get back into the scene if Spice Girls start doing stuff! But for now I'm through with this. I still pay for the site/web space and would like to continue to do so, because I feel most comfortable trusting myself at keeping it online until the end of time. I still plan to do the 1996 & 1997 news, and I think that WILL actually be up sometime this year, that'll be my closure. And I might touch up a few things to finish off that site renovation that started half a year ago. As far as the commanding role of the site however, I'm handing that over to Schnickers. So he'll be the new SpiceNews head guy.

Goodbye my friends.
I gained solo ownership of this site back in 1998 when it was a single text page and had about 100 visitors/day. Since then I have done my best job to post all Spice Girls news, and upgrade the quality of the site and you guys all came and watched, to the point of 3000+ visitors/day. It's been a hell of a ride, and very much fun. I'd like to thank all you Spice Girls fans for being my audience and helping the site grow, by telling your friends about it, and being fans of the site. And especially I'd like to give a warm thank-you to the people who have been visiting this site since wayyyy back then in 98, out of the hundred-or-so that visited each day, if any of you still do to this day. Thanks to everyone who sent in Spice Girls news, whether it was posted or not. Thanks for all the positive feedback and encouragement, it was all very appreciated. Thanks to Anna-Karin and the original #SpiceGirls Undernet for starting this site. And thanks most of all to the Spice Girls. All FIVE of you originals. When I think of Spice Girls I think of the good old days of 1997, young energetic girls creating mayhem, having fun, taking everybody along with them for the ride, and giving all you had to give. Although my dream of meeting you never came true, you still have had a huge impact on the world, the music industry, me, and many people's lives, honestly much more than you could probably imagine. You girls still rock, and keep on doing your stuff!

I'm passing the torch onto the people who are on this site now. I think this site has grown from a small idea to a very good, cool, and exciting project. The last thing I'd want to happen is for the site to fall apart without me, and I'm pretty sure it won't happen with the people who are working on it. These are good people who work hard in the Spice Community giving you everything, for nothing. Please give them the same kindness and respect you have given me over the years.

And it's still Spice Girls till I die, just not solo-Spice-Girls-News-posting till I die, I will never not be a huge fan of Spice Girls. Smiling, dancing, everything is free, all you need is positivty. Viva Forever, Spice Girls Forever. Goodbye.

-Joz
joz@spicenews.com

Schnickers: 17 years old, in Germany. His experience includes him being the guy behind SpiceGirls.de (which was shut down thanks to some lame German laws and Virgin-Germany being tight-asses, aka sucking), the short-lived SpiceNews.de (which was an authorized German port of SpiceNews), as well as encoding a number of videos and audio, sending in news to SpiceNews regularly, currently running Schnickers.net, #SpiceChat Operator, and just genenrally hanging around the Spice Community. He can be contacted at Schnickers@spicenews.com

Mike: aka MikeMGMVE - 18 years old, in Los Angeles, California. His experience includes him being the man behind the former website NowSpice, currently(or at the end of) running SpiceVideos.net, contributions to, and basically part of Spice Viva Forever, always quick to post lyrics to new Spice songs probably before most of you have even heard them(like a couple hours after it hits the net!), #SpiceChat Operator, and part of a few Spice Girls mailing lists and forums. He can be contacted at mike@spicenews.com

So welcome these two new guys to the team!

Oh yeah, and Char is NOT a part of SpiceNews, that was a little joke Char tried to pull on me via Mike. It was actually posted by Mike. Nice try Char!

So the banners are up in an attempt to self-finance SpiceNews.com Yes it is sad, three years commercial-free, and now this. But hey, do you want hastle-free fast access to new audio and video or don't you? Any revenue generated from the advertisements will go straight to the website. This is still just an experiment as I have no idea how much revenue will be generated, hopefully enough to upgrade the server and cover monthly costs, and if more, then it will be set aside to keep site maintainance going in the future. And if you see an advertisement that might interest you, go ahead and click it, it only helps SpiceNews.com :) Well, we hope that the banner ads are not too much of a burden on your eyes, but I just want to say again that they are not there for trying to milk money out of the site, but rather for improving the site itself.

-Joz

"Oh my god, Joz is over the Spice Girls!"

"Joz doesn't like the Spice Girls anymore, he hates them!"

"Joz hates the Spice Girls now, and he doesn't want to do SpiceNews.com anymore! It's all over!!!"

Hahah, no, none of that is true. I told you people from day one, S-P-I-C-E till I die! I wasn't kidding. The purpose of multiple updaters is simply that I myself do not have to worry as much about when I last updated the site. It's not cool to be frequently thinking "wait, when did I last update SpiceNews!? Oh no, it hasn't been more than a day has it!?" It takes some of the workload off of me, and best for you guys, it gives you more updates.

So I'd like to introduce Luke Peterson. Not that he needs much of an introduction for any of you people who are on some Spice mailing lists. For those of you who are not familiar with him: He has been sending any Spice Girls news he finds to multiple mailing lists for a number of years. He's the perfect person to contribute to this site, and he has kindly accepted the offer.

So check that little poster ID tag at the end of the date on the news stories, and where you often see [Joz], you might start seeing [LukeP]. Speaking of the date.. Luke is in Australia, so his posts will be tagged with the time & date being in AEST format. This means "Australian Eastern Standard Time". Mine are in PST - which is US "Pacific Standard Time". This can cause news stories from me posted later then Luke, but dated in the past as compared to his, since Australia is nearly a full day ahead of California. Why not both just use the same date format? Bah, we don't feel like recalculating our times to each others or GMT each time we update. Yes this is another reason to use an automated script, but we're not using any at this point so thats how it's going to be for now.

So give Luke a warm welcome! He can be reached at LukeP@spicenews.com

I am not a graphic artist and the person who was supposed to do it hasn't done it. So lets have kind of a contest. Anybody who thinks they can design a new high quality SpiceNews logo can give it a try. The best one will be the new logo for the site, and the runner ups will be posted here on the site news page. The new logo must be 468x116, GIF or JPEG, and keep it under 30k please. I'd like something that blends in nicely with the current site design, something definitely Spicey, just something good.. It definitely has to say "SpiceNews", could use the current version 3 logo style, but SMALL(you know how it appears on the cd's & merchandise these days, that JPEG is only scanned large for sampling purposes), or you could think of something of your own...

Just a really cool, high quality, impressive looking logo. What will you get for this? I'll arrange a meeting with the Spice Girls for you! Just kidding, don't really think I can manage that.. There really is no prize, I can add your name and/or a URL/email address to the "alt" tag of the image, so when it is loading up your name is always at the top of SpiceNews!(hey-hey!) But I definitely think it would be cool to have a great quality logo voluntarily made for free by a SpiceNews fan. Lets give this "contest" until the 16th of February, thats the deadline ;) Just email your logo to me at joz@spicenews.com with the topic "SPICENEWS LOGO: <Your Name>"