program was ultimately a commercial failure, but Gay and Jackson came up with a new idea that they believed would prove to be a much greater success: a web-based drawing and animation program that they named "FutureSplash". In January 1997, four years after the founding of FutureWave, the company was acquired by software giant Macromedia with the primary goal being the acquisition of FutureSplash. The program's versatility and compact design had made it ideal for web media playback and production, and Macromedia was eager to capitalize on the software's increasing popularity. Re-branded into "Macromedia Flash", the software proved to be an even bigger success than FutureSplash, quickly becoming the universal standard for web animation production and playback. 1998-2005: increased popularity Tom Fulp started working with Flash soon after the Macromedia acquisition, producing his first game with the software, "Telebubby Fun Land", in 1998. Despite the limited capabilities of the animator, Flash games were unprecedented. The publication of Fulp's 1999 point-and-click Flash game classic "Pico's School" kicked off the exponential growth of the genre's popularity. As a result, Newgrounds soon became a major hub of online activity. In 2000, Fulp introduced a portal system through which users could submit Flash animations and games of their own. Other game and animation aggregator sites such as "Addicting Games" followed soon after, and even older, more niche animation platforms such as "stickdeath.com" and "stick figure death theater" reached wider notoriety. Xiao Xiao On April 19, 2001, Chinese animator Zhu Zhiqiang uploaded a 75-second-long video titled "Xiao Xiao" on the newly formed Newgrounds animation portal. Accompanied by bit-crushed audio samples, it shows two simple stick figures fighting with their fists and various weapons over a white background. Inspired by over-the-top, Hong-Kong-style martial arts films, Zhiqiang let his figures perform flips, flying kicks, and a number of other exaggerated attacks and defenses. As the fight gets increasingly intense, more tools including a bow and arrow, rocket launchers, and duplication abilities are added to the mix before the battle comes to a final, violent conclusion. With this simple formula, "Xiao Xiao" quickly became the most popular Flash animation ever created. Spawning countless imitations and "Xiao-Xiao-style" descendants, it turned into the blueprint for an entire sub genre of 2D animation that has garnered hundreds of millions of views since. Other notable events (2001-2005) Late 2001: Canadian animator Jason Whitham creates stickpage.com, an animation hosting website focused on stick