AcronymFinder.com grows to more than 200,000 unique abbreviations

Acronym Finder, the world’s largest and most respected acronym and abbreviation search engine reaches a new content milestone.

Estes Park, CO (PRWEB) January 8, 2008 – Mountain Data Systems, LLC, the publisher of Acronym Finder, the most comprehensive reference site for abbreviations and acronyms, reports that its database now contains over 200,000 unique abbreviations with over 585,000 abbreviation meanings.

Mike Molloy, founder and developer of the human-edited AcronymFinder.com, said, "This milestone demonstrates a depth of content in the human-edited Acronym Finder not found in any other abbreviation reference resource. Even respected printed dictionaries and dictionary websites have ‘only’ 200,000 to 300,000 unique words. We have over 200,000 unique terms, with nearly 600,000 definitions. And generally speaking, abbreviations are expressing more complex concepts and ideas than a single word.”

Acronym Finder's counting methodology is conservative -- each unique abbreviation’s meaning is counted only once, even if it appears in multiple categories. Molloy adds, “Some of our competitors put a single definition in five different categories, and count that as five definitions.”

Thanks to AcronymFinder.com’s loyal users and contributors, the total number of human-edited abbreviation definitions in Acronym Finder is expected to reach a record 600,000 in early 2008. Molloy says, “traditional word dictionaries grow by a few hundred new words each year, but Acronym Finder grows by about 5,000 verified abbreviation definitions each month.”

Molloy adds, “And in the unlikely event you can’t find the definition for an abbreviation at Acronym Finder, try the Acronym Attic, an unedited sister site. The ‘Attic’ has another 3 million or so candidate acronyms and abbreviations we haven’t reviewed yet.”

About AcronymFinder.com:

The privately held AcronymFinder.com is the largest and most authoritative acronym and abbreviation reference website and has been online for over 10 years. AcronymFinder.com receives more than 1 million unique visitors each month from over 210 countries.

Copyright (c) 2008, Mountain Data Systems

Press Contact
Mike Molloy
AcronymFinder.com
970-586-5556

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Yahoo! Tech mentions Acronym Finder

Yahoo! Tech's Robin Raskin mentioned Acronym Finder in her Aug 22, 2007 blog entry "Top-Notch Reference Sites for Students".

We're listed with some very nice company: RefDesk, Wikipedia, eHow, The Library of Congress, and more.

Thanks, Robin!

The Times Online mentions Acronym Finder

Ben Macintyre, a columnist for The Times Online UK Edition, mentions Acronym Finder in an article about acronyms and abbreviations.

With just the right touch of both seriousness and humor, he asks,

"Why do we shorten world wide web to double-you double-you double-you, which has three times as many syllables?"

Good question! :-)

We used to list the extremely long Soviet acronym he mentions at the end of the article, but we were told by a Russian translator we trust that it's almost certainly made-up, so we "delisted it" (even though it's apparently in the Guinness Book of World Records).

Thanks, Ben.

Acronym Finder chosen as Refdesk.com SOTD

On May 17, 2007 Acronym Finder was the Site of the Day (SOTD) at Refdesk.com, one of the mostly highly regarded news and reference portal websites.

Bob Drudge has done an outstanding job with organizing and indexing the very best resources on the web. We're honored not only as a SOTD selection, but also as a Refdesk.com recommendation for acronym and abbreviation reference. Thanks, and keep up the good work, Bob!

AcronymFinder.com Celebrates Ten Year Anniversary

Acronym Finder, the world’s largest and most trusted acronym and abbreviation reference source, celebrates its 10^th year online.

Estes Park, Colorado May 1, 2007 – Mountain Data Systems LLC, the publisher of Acronym Finder (www.acronymfinder.com), announced that it is marking its tenth year online as the most respected and widely-used abbreviations reference source.

Mike Molloy, the founder and developer of AcronymFinder.com, said, “When I launched the site in 1997, I had two goals: I wanted to make available a database of abbreviations and acronyms I had collected since 1985; and I wanted to learn about web database programming. Acronym Finder wasn’t the first web-based abbreviations search site, but the day it went online, it became the largest human-edited collection available – and it still is.”

In early 1998, Acronym Finder was picked as a USA Today Hot Site, and was soon a Netscape Cool Site of the Day. Visits to the site soared, and many users began to suggest meanings for new abbreviations not found in the database. So many new meanings streamed in that Molloy had to develop a submission form to accept new entries and a custom software application to speed up verifying and editing all the new terms.

“I knew the abbreviations database might be very useful to others, but I had no idea how quickly it would be embraced and enhanced by web users all over the world,” Molloy says. People contributing to Acronym Finder were pioneers in what we now call “user-generated content.” The site launched with just over 43,000 entries and doubled in size in less than two years.

Molloy added, “Now, just ten years later, Acronym Finder has over 550,000 terms, and is still growing by an average of 200 new entries every day.” The site is queried around the clock by users worldwide, and in every conceivable discipline: K-12 and university students and educators; government and defense industry employees; medical transcriptionists; translators and interpreters, and anyone with a need to decipher the alphabet soup of letters that abbreviate often highly technical concepts.

The site’s rapid growth and popularity garnered further recognition in the press: two more USA Today Hot Site mentions; twice named as a PC Magazine Top 100 Website; Site of the Week in TechTV’s The ScreenSavers; and selected for the Britannica Internet Guide Award. Acronym Finder was also chosen for the Writer’s Digest Best Websites for Writers, and it made the list of Best Free Reference Websites selected by the American Library Association’s Machine-Assisted Reference Section. Most recently, Acronym Finder and its owners were featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal on January 13, 2007.

Acronym Finder also collaborates with, links with, or licenses content to other major web search and reference providers, including TheFreeDictionary.com, Reference.com, RefDesk.com, Ask.com, OneLook.com, and many others.

Molloy concluded, “We look forward to celebrating many more milestones in providing our high quality reference content to users around the world.”

About AcronymFinder.com:

The privately held AcronymFinder.com is the largest and most authoritative acronym and abbreviation reference website. Users from a wide variety of disciplines visit this free resource to look up acronyms from every imaginable subject area. Each month AcronymFinder.com receives over 1 million unique visitors from over 180 countries and answers more than 3 million acronym and abbreviation queries.

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Copyright © 2007, Mountain Data Systems, LLC

Press Contact
Mike Molloy
AcronymFinder.com
970-586-5556

Acronym Finder in "Best Free Reference Web Sites"

Acronym Finder was selected as one of the "Best Free Reference Web Sites" for 2006 by the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of the American Library Association (ALA).

The list, in its eighth year, is published in the fall issue of Reference & User Services Quarterly and recognizes outstanding reference sites on the World Wide Web. The complete index of all previous winners is also available at the RUSA site.

Acronym Finder featured in Wall Street Journal

We were thrilled to see Acronym Finder featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for Saturday, January 13, 2007.

Read the article here.

AcronymFinder.com Sponsors Peak 10 Louisville Technology Acronym Bee

Annual competition to benefit the National Center for Family Literacy October 26
Estes Park, Colorado September 6, 2006 – Mountain Data Systems LLC, the publisher of Acronym Finder (www.acronymfinder.com) has logged on as a general sponsor of the Peak 10 Louisville Technology Acronym Bee (LTAB), an annual fund-raising event for the nationally recognized National Center for Family Literacy set for October 26.

LTAB is similar to the numerous successful corporate spelling bees held in communities around the nation every year. However, instead of spelling obscure words, adults participating in LTAB will define obscure technology acronyms. Participants form corporate teams to compete for the title, prizes, the LTAB Champion Trophy Cup and bragging rights. All of the proceeds will benefit the National Center for Family Literacy, recognized internationally as the leader in family literacy.

The event is organized by Peak 10, the Southeast's leading data center operator and managed services provider. It will be held October 26 at Louisville Slugger Field in Louisville, Kentucky from 11:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

“We’re really pleased to be working with Peak 10 to help raise money for the National Center for Family Literacy. We feel that literacy is so fundamental to success in life and in technology. The Acronym Bee is a really fun concept, and it’s such a great fit with what we do,” said Mike Molloy, founder and developer of AcronymFinder.com.

More than 30 million adults in adults in the U.S. lack the skills to complete a job application, vote, use the Internet, or read a bedtime story to a child, according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy.

“The support NCFL receives from this entertaining event enhances our ability to meet the educational and economic needs of at-risk children and families across the nation,” said NCFL founder and president Sharon Darling.

Shannon McIntyre-Alward, Director of Marketing at Peak 10, says, “We are pleased to coordinate LTAB, which since its inception, has raised nearly $50,000 for NCFL. We are thrilled to bring together so many people in the technology community for such a worthy cause. “

For more information, visit: 2006 Peak 10 Louisville Technology Acronym Bee

About AcronymFinder.com:

The privately held AcronymFinder.com is the largest and most authoritative acronym and abbreviation reference website. Users from a wide variety of disciplines visit this free resource to look up acronyms from every imaginable subject area. Each month AcronymFinder.com receives over 1 million unique visitors from over 180 countries and answers more than 3 million acronym and abbreviation queries.

About Peak 10:

Peak 10 is the leading independent data center operator and managed services provider in the eastern United States, delivering scalable, economical and reliable solutions for hosting and managing complex information technology infrastructure. The company combines its eight data centers and portfolio of managed services with localized engineering and support to serve market-leading companies including Rivals.com, Global Knowledge, Pergo, Churchill Downs, LendingTree and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Peak 10 owns and operates world class facilities in Nashville, Tenn.; Louisville, Ky.; Tampa and Jacksonville, Fla; and Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C. The company was recently ranked as one of the fastest growing private companies in America by Inc. magazine. For more information on data center solutions from Peak 10, visit www.peak10.com.

About the National Center for Family Literacy:

The National Center for Family Literacy, the worldwide leader in family literacy, was founded in Louisville in 1989. NCFL has impacted 1 million families and trained 150,000 teachers, practitioners and advocates. To learn more or to donate to this effort, call 1-877-FAMLIT1 or visit www.famlit.org.

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Copyright ©2006, Mountain Data Systems, LLC

Press Contacts

Mike Molloy
AcronymFinder.com
970-586-5556

Shannon McIntyre-Alward
Peak 10, Inc.
502-315-6007

Marvin Young
National Center for Family Literacy
502-584-1133 x173

AcronymFinder.com now has over 500,000 acronyms and abbreviations

Mountain Data Systems, LLC, publisher of Acronym Finder, the world’s most respected acronym and abbreviation reference resource, announced that its dictionary has grown to more than half a million human-edited definitions.

Estes Park, Colorado July 24, 2006 – The editors at Acronym Finder (www.acronymfinder.com), just added their 500,000th human-edited definition to the database.

Mike Molloy, founder and developer of AcronymFinder.com, said, “We are thrilled to reach this milestone in our site’s content. Since we’ve been on the web, our database has grown by over 1000%, making it the fastest growing dictionary of its kind. We verify, edit and add about 250 new terms every day, and our visitors suggest most of these new definitions. There’s no way we could create and maintain such a large dictionary without the help of people from all over the world working in every imaginable discipline.”

The half-million definitions in Acronym Finder are searchable by acronym or abbreviation, or by words contained in a meaning. Users can also sort and filter results on several major categories. The site offers free tools to improve convenience and usability for novice and power users alike. Users can also read the Acronym Finder blog for the latest news on the site and its features, and can interact with other site users in a forum.

Molloy believes Acronym Finder’s continued growth and success is not only about how many definitions there are -- it’s also about a quality user experience. “We listen carefully to suggestions and feedback from our users and we continue to work hard to be the world’s largest and best resource for acronyms and abbreviations.”

About AcronymFinder.com:

Launched with about 43,000 definitions, the privately held AcronymFinder.com quickly became the largest and most authoritative acronym and abbreviation reference website. Users from a wide variety of disciplines visit this free resource to look up acronyms from every imaginable subject area. Each month AcronymFinder.com receives over 1 million unique visitors from over 180 countries and answers more than 3 million acronym and abbreviation queries.

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Copyright © 2006, Mountain Data Systems, LLC

Press Contact
Mike Molloy
AcronymFinder.com
970-586-5556

Acronym Finder in the News

Recently, Acronym Finder has been mentioned in some cool places.

We made The Daily home pages A-List Best of the Web for Wednesday, October 5, 2005 (archived here). Thanks to Terry Patterson for pointing this out.

Stan Horzepa (WA1LOU), at the National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL) wrote an article "Surfin': Got AAIs (Abbreviations, Acronym and Initialims)?"

Finally, Acronym Finder was a USA Today Hotsite on September 9th, 2005.