Developed by: Alex Balson and his Dad
Maintained by: Alex Balson
Koala Trouble was first posted on the Internet on January 1st
1996.
Picture on right (Alex at five)
Six weeks earlier five year old Alex's dad, Scott, (who writes books) had tried unsuccessfully to get young Alex interested in the Internet.
Scott spent a day "surfing the net" before he sat down with young Alex to show him what he had found.
Dad sat his son on his knee and pulled up the first, then the second, then the third web site.... Alex responded with growing frustration as he looked at the pages of words and large colourful images by saying... "This is boring".
Nothing would draw his son back to the computer, gentle bribing, a shouted "Wow, look at this" or even lollies! Alex's dad was in big trouble!
Then Dad hit on an idea when he saw his son drawing basic pictures of his toy koala the day after Alex had spotted a live koala at Wivenhoe dam near his home in Karana Downs - Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
After sitting with young Alex for about an hour the first story was born. A story about a lost koala baby called Max.
Once Alex had drawn the pictures dad scanned them and then Alex used a paint programme to add colour. Dad added words and the html code and put the result up on the Internet.
The first page was the story "Help Max find his Mummy" placed on 1st January 1996. The story became an overnight international success with Koala Trouble being pointed to by Netscape's What's New and receiving a special mention from Yahoo.
Koala Trouble was continually added to during 1996-1999 with more of Alex's picture stories and his visits to meet sick and baby koalas being recorded on the site.
Alex thinking up a Max adventure,
then preparing a story board of pictures telling the story on a single sheet
of paper before drawing each picture individually. Dad adding the words and
putting the story on the Internet.
Picture on right Alex with baby Koob-Bor
Koala Trouble, amongst too many awards to mention, won the inaugural 1996 Australian Financial Review/Telstra award for the best Australian web site for children under 15 years of age.
During 1997 Koala Trouble had reached an estimated audience of 1,000,000 kids of all ages since it first went up on the Internet. Today that number is closer to two million.
Today Koala Trouble offers children a large range of options. The main ones being education about everybody's favourite "teddy", Max, and training on how to use a computer mouse. Most importantly of all - as you will see under "What the kids say" Koala Trouble is FUN! Koala Trouble is a unique web site on the Internet. It is fun for kids of all ages because it is based on the images and stories dreamed up by a young boy for kids to relate to and interact with. The sites Alex's dad had shown him back in 1995 were designed by adults - and it shows!
Alex is now eight years old, but like a lot of his school friends enjoys visiting his Koala Trouble web site which is now over three years old!
Copyright:
All images and stories are Copyright to Alex and Scott Balson. Publishing enquiries should be referred to Alex Balson by email. No images may be used in any form without our written approval to do so.
Last updated June 1999