PinoyExchange, more commonly called PEx, just announced that the website will shutdown on 15th of April. PinoyExchange.Com is one of the first and oldest website in the Philippines, the domain was registered in 1999 and the website have been running for 24 years.

PinoyExchange.com is the virtual home of many Filipinos here and abroad, you can could say that it is the first website in the country that offer UGC (user-generated content). The announcement did not provide any reason or explanation as to why the website is closing.

Here’s a short history of PinoyExchange.com as posted on the website;

During the early days of internet in the Philippines in the late 1990s, an idea emerged to create an online message board because at that time, the only way to communicate online were via chat sites and chat rooms.

On July 12, 1999, PinoyExchange was born founded by Michael Nolledo, Nix Nolledo and Jude Turcuato (Kaboom!) and later on joined by Michael Palacios (Mikoid) as a lead designer and technical consultant. Some early PEx members also became moderators to help out in managing content and discussions.

The website gained popularity through its exposure via televised UAAP basketball games where Jude (Kaboom!) was a commentator. During halftime, viewers were asked to express their views regarding the ongoing basketball games by posting comments on PEx. Thousands of students and alumni from UAAP member schools visited the site and created discussions revolving around the UAAP games.

PEx reached the 2,000 member mark before the turn of the century. This was at a time when the Philippine internet penetration was less than 2%.

Today, PEx has over 1.5M monthly users and has evolved to become an online forum where users from all over the world can connect and converse on a wide variety of topics.