Adam Powell
Adam J. Powell (born December 20, 1976 in Wales) is the co-founder of Neopets. Jointly launched the website with Donna Williams on November 15, 1999, starting from an idea they had in 1997 while sitting in a dingy little computer room, possibly while eating kebabs or pizza.
Prior to founding Neopets, he was also involved in Shout! Advertising, a UK-based advertising company which operated the third largest click-through program on the Internet by mid-1999. He also founded Netmagic in July 1999, which focused on web page design, and Powlex in March 1997, which designed and sold online banner advertising. Mr. Powell currently focuses on the technical and programming aspects of the Neopets website, and is still the head of the developers for the game.
Powell is mentioned in the hall of fame at his secondary school, Collingwood College, although he had a self-described "spectacular failure at university." He is also a former member of MENSA with an IQ of 174.
Powell has two cats in California called Sarah and Chani. In the United Kingdom he has four cats called Oscar, Daisy, Bill and Ben.
On Neopets
Powell's Neopets account is borovan, which is taken from a late-80s sketch on British Saturday morning TV featuring the comedians Trevor and Simon. With this account, he enjoys the luxary of having 5 Neopets, +1 the maximum amount users are allowed to have.
References to Mr. Powell's craving for Asparagus exist throughout the Neopets website. The reason for this fascination, because he likes them or flaunts them because most people don't, is not known. All the same, if you type in "Asparagus" on the Neopets search engine, Adam will show up and say, "You can't have it, it's all MINE!" (also when users click on parts of certain games, small buttons pop up with a variation of this quote printed upon it). On Mr. Powell's birthday, every Neopet becomes asparagus! He also has 4 out of the 5 of his pets on his user account as Asparagus Chias. The other is a Red Bori, which is usually in its "sad" pose.
He is occasionally called Number Six, a nickname taken from the 60s show The Prisoner, and also has a Plushie named after him on the site. There is also a highly sought after Avatar related to him, to get this you must have exactly the same amount of Neopoints as his account, viewable at the Neopets About Us page.
Adam visits the PPT Forum occasionally to interact with the users and keep tabs on how the populace view new features. He even sometimes lets the users see features before they are released! Often when he comes, he takes on board user suggestions on how to improve the website.
External Links
- User Account: borovan
- Neopets Staff: About Us
- PinkPT Interview with Powell
- Collingwood College biography