The Inside Scoop on CoolROM’s.com with Founder Edward Chang

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Digging through the internet for your favorite ROM can be a frustrating process. Some sites can’t be trusted, others just throw you around in loops to find exactly what you’re looking for. I have recently gotten a short, sweet, and to the point interview with the founder of CoolRom.com Edward Chang. In it, he discusses revenue streams from the site, traffic stats, and how he built and created a Emulation and ROM empire.

For those who don’t know, what are ROM’s and Emulators and what types of downloads does CoolROM offer?

Emulators allow you to imitate other programs or devices on your computer – in the case of classic gaming, they allow you to run SNES games on your computer, for example. ROM stands for read-only memory and they are the games you download to run with emulators.

How did you get the idea for the site? Are there any sites you used for inspiration, either design-wise or other?

CoolROM was originally started as a hobby; my love for the classic games gave me a desire to create an easy to navigate site with archives to all the old goodies to make it easy for others to enjoy ROM emulation.

Can you describe some of the major differences you’ve seen as CoolROM has grown over the 6 years it’s been online?

More and more individuals are going back to the classic games, and now I truly realize how many of us there are that share this passion.

How active is the CoolROM community, especially with the recently-added forums section?

Our community is thriving and we now have over 85k registered members.

What are some of the most popular ROMs downloaded from CoolROM? Do you have any personal favorites?

The most popular ROMs would have to be from the SNES, which include the Final Fantasy series and Chrono Trigger. Personally, I love the Contra and Donkey Kong series.

CoolROM Home Page

What type of advertising do you use on the site? Does CoolROM make a decent amount of money through advertising?

We run banner advertising on the site (no popups!) and make a good enough income to pay off the servers, and some more 😉

Could you share with us the top referring sites that send traffic to CoolROM?

Google 🙂

Can you explain a bit about how the rules of downloading ROM’s you don’t physically own work?

NES Controller Myth has it that you must remove ROM files within 24 hours for the ones that you don’t physically own; however, I don’t think there is proof for this statement. We are just providing a way for you to enjoy your favorite classic games on your computer, so if you really enjoy them, buy them!

Where do you see CoolROM going within the next year? Do you have any plans in the works for new features on the site?

All I can see is up. We are going to work on revamping our emulators section and organize ROM files according to genre/similar categories.

Do you have any last-minute advice for the readers?

Play safe!

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About the author

Inside The Webb

Inside the Webb is a blog based on new and popular web 2.0 sites, and all things social media. Here at the site, we try to collect all of the information we can on some of the most intriguing websites out there. We often publish many interviews throughout the months, all exclusive interviews with founders and developers of new social web apps.

About Author

Ian Carnaghan

I am a software developer and online educator who likes to keep up with all the latest in technology. I also manage cloud infrastructure, continuous monitoring, DevOps processes, security, and continuous integration and deployment.

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