GhostSurfers.com is the original domain of Ghostsurfers Intl.
About GhostSurfers.com
Ghostsurfers.com got over 100 million page views in the first half of 2000. There were over 30,000 members. The company was not funded and the development plan for founder James Carvin's Default Flow Thru technology never got past its first phase of release. The second phase plan was a search engine with social networking features several years ahead of FaceBook. Carvin struggled to keep the company afloat but was unable to obtain funding. He was simply too far ahead of his time and couldn't convey the enormity of his idea. For lack of funds, the final phase of his patent was never completed on his technology, which makes the use of it fair game for all. See http://ghost-surfers.com/PatentApplication.pdf for the whole story. This now has a Post Log for a follow up on Carvin and the Ghostsurfer Story. Carvin had just implemented features that allowed members to upload photographs, start their own blogs, and create their own communities, moving the site from a business networking to social networking site when a hacking incident occurred in August 2001, preventing him from getting it off the ground. He had hired New York based, ISI Studios for a 5% share in Ghostsurfers Intl. ISI had programmed SesameStreet.com but after contracting with Ghostsurfers.com in the summer of 2001 lost the account. As a result they layed off their employees and outsourced their work. The group that developed the forum community was granted a back-door access to Carvin's site by ISI. ISI, which declared bankruptcy, then failed to pay their hired developers. The forum developers were misinformed and blamed Carvin for not getting paid and installed malware into the incremental back up system which was timed to delete all files. Several weeks after taking Ghostsurfers.com offline a Russian programmer contacted Carvin asking for money in exchange for the data.
Hackers also destroyed Carvin's personal computer files at his home and the source was shown to be from Russia, as well. Carvin, who was meticulous about saving correspondence, and was known for writing long emails, claims to have lost everything he ever received or wrote, including 11 books. Prior to founding Ghostsurfers Intl. he was a professor in an Orthodox Christian seminary by night, and a letter carrier for the US Postal Service by day. His books pertained to theology and Scripture commentary.
The original, very successful Ghostsurfers.com was developed by Tallahassee based ASD, which programmed MyFlorida.com. In July, 2000 they ceased all private sector work and Carvin had to hunt for new programmers. From August to November, 2000 India based Indinfotech took over the code. And from December 2000 through August 2001 it was in the hands of ISI Studios. After the hacking incident, Tallahassee based Rich Mill and Jim Haskins agreed to rebuild Ghostsurfers.com for 50% of stock, as equal partners with Carvin. Haskins wanted to sell Internet service to add cash revenue to the company but their efforts failed to produce a marketable web site.
Finally, Carvin gave his remaining shares to Mill and Haskins. But even 100% ownership did not inspire them. Due to poor health neither programmer had time to develop the web site. So they dropped the project completely - never communicating with Carvin again. A year later, the domain name, Ghostsurfers.com was on sale to the public for $60,000 by GreatDomains.com. There were no buyers. In 2010 the price was signficantly lowered as it was sold to Massachusettes based BuyDomains.com.
Carvin went on to found the Creative Realty Network, 123 Dream Home and RealEstateMLM.biz, which had measured success. but all of these were abandoned with the Real Estate bust. He is currently working for The Home Depot in an entry level position and has returned to writing theology books in his spare time. He owns allhourschurch.com and 247scrolls.org, and actively blogs from jamescarvin.com. He has stated that he believes that Ghostsurfers.com will come back one day to do what he originally intended. He owns a number of related domains.
