Crusthaven.com, an internet landmark, is now for sale. The owners have decided to put the site on the market with a million dollar price tag. Money from the sale of the website will be used to purchase 800 acres of land and build a community center for the 200+ homeless members of the online community.

"Preachur," the original builder and primary owner of Crusthaven said: "I am sick of watching my friends and family die on the streets. I am sick of seeing the Earth suffer because people aren't living green. Selling Crusthaven will allow us to establish a community on damaged land that is Earth-friendly. It will give the crusty tribe a place to live. We will never have to be homeless again, and we will turn desolation into paradise. Whoever decides to buy Crusthaven will be a real hero."

Established in 1996 at a public library, Crust Haven was originally built on Angelfire and Firefly as a free message board and community group site for homeless gutter punks a.k.a. "crusties." By 1999 the site had developed into a full-fledged community with interactive stories, free email hosting and even featured a web-based instant messenger service called "CrUsThAvEn Communicator." At the time it was the only instant messenger that could effectively be used from public libraries since it required no downloads or plug-ins to function. In 2001 the domains crusthaven.com and crusthaven.org were purchased as the primary domains. Crusthaven.org was lost in 2002 due to lack of funds, but has since been re-purchased.

Crusthaven is a high-traffic site. In 2003 it was featured in an article in Rolling Stone Magazine. After that the site quickly gained in popularity. Extensive promotions and submissions by it's administrators have given it great search engine rankings and hundreds of in-links.

After a recent re-build and remodeling the site has many features comparable to MySpace and Facebook. People have a profile with a friend list, personal photo albums, they can create their own groups that others can join, etc.

However, the website isn't just an effective community site. When asked what else it can do Preachur was happy to elaborate:

"Crusthaven can do almost anything. There are 70 modules that can be activated through the administration area and more can be installed any time. It is capable of creating and maintaining many directories and databases... The site can be a store, a company site, a customer service center. It's purpose can be changed with a few mouse clicks. It has live help capabilities with real-time visitor tracking. It has 2 banner systems and partner and client software. It has advanced survey and polling software for marketing research and even has development software installed to create unlimited business applications. It really is a powerful tool. Not only that but the site is so interactive that visitors always come back. Classifieds, forums, news, chats, stores, directories, addresses, links, statistics, advertising, marketing, selling, buying, tracking, linking.... You name it it can probably do it. It has a variety of editors to choose from including WYSIWYG, so even a child could run it. It has a theme system that is easy to customize. Users can choose their own theme if you choose, or you can turn that feature off and use any one theme you want and change it any time yourself with 2 clicks in administration section. It even has built-in security software to protect against a wide variety of hack attacks. It's a great site. I will be happy to help the new owners re-launch it for whatever purpose they choose."

So that's the story. A great site for sale for a great cause. 209 homeless members are waiting for homes. The sale of this well-established website will accomplish that goal. You are invited to stop by today and show your support: http://crusthaven.org