Gaia Online is an anime-themed social networking and forums-based website. Originally named "Go-Gaia??-02", it opened to the public on February 18, 2003 by Gaia Interactive. Gaia originally began as an anime link list and eventually got itself a small community but after a statement by founder Derek Liu (username "Lanzer"), the website moved towards social gaming. It eventually became the forum-based website it is now. with over a million posts made daily, over a billion posts total, and over 2.5 million unique users each month. Gaia also won the 2007 Wetware 100 award in the Community category.

Users of the site, denominated as Gaians, create a customizable avatar and a customizable virtual home for which they can purchase items using what is called Gaia Online Gold. This virtual currency is given to the users after engaging in some of the website activities, like playing a series of Flash games or the regular posting inside the forums; the site also rewards users every day with random quantities of gold and items with the Daily Chance feature. In July 2007, Gaia released a new kind of currency Gaia gold denominated as Gaia Cash that can be bought at Rite Aid, Wal-Mart, or Target stores.

Special Events

Gaia holds various special events during the year, ranging from special updates to holidays (April Fools, 4th of July, Halloween, Easter, Christmas, Valentines day). During the events, the users take part in an active storyline of local plots (on occasion, the users even get to vote upon the plot outcome) and in multi-user interactive games. These events also reward Gaians with commemorative items during the event. Sometimes, rewards will even include a new Avatar "base" for Gaians to use, such as the zombie, grombie, Zurg (alien), and Vampire skin.

Events usually last around two weeks, though some have lasted longer.

As of Easter 2008, Gaia has unfortunately stated that the Easter Event 08 would not happen, but other events would replace it, such as an upcoming "Prom Crashers" event. The Prom Crashers features clothes that Christian Siriano, the winner of Project Runway, designed.

Forums

Forums are public message boards that users use for everything ranging from regular conversation to role play and even in-depth discussion. Gaians may make threads in any forum, per the forum guidelines.

Guilds

Gaians can form guilds, which are clubs specially devoted to certain topics. These include hangout guilds, role playing guilds, and guilds for particular anime. While some guilds require a payment to be admitted, others are completely free.

Guilds take a small amount of Gaia Online to create, and many features can be added, such as additional forums. Guilds also are controlled by the guild "crew" who has the power to moderate any thread in the guild.

Avatars

Members of Gaia Online receive an avatar when they sign up. Users have the ability to customize their avatar in many ways, including skin tone, eye style and color, hair style and color, gender, and attire. Numerous items, accessories, and clothing pieces can be purchased, with gold or Gaia Cash, and equipped on the avatar. Avatars appear next to posts in the forums and profile comments (the post itself encapsulated in a "speech bubble"), and in Towns and several other environments, the avatar appears as a movable character that can travel from place to place, interacting with the environment (catching bugs, shaking trees for gold) and other users.