With a barely furnished office, the half-done website and a skeleton crew, the task of launching Malaysia's first independent online media seemed close to impossible. Yet, Dr Mahathir Mohamad's move to call a snap election, seemed the best opportunity to draw an audience.

Eleven days later, on Nov 20, 1999, with none of the customary Malaysia Boleh fanfare - ribbon cutting, laser shows, ministerial endorsement - malaysiakini went live.

Four years later, malaysiakini has grown and evolved. The website has received awards and accolades, applause and ridicule, police reports and raids. It has never been easy, but the response we have received from readers and supporters here in Malaysia and from all corners of the world, have always kept us going.

There have been high points � like in early April 2000, five months after the launch, when we discovered that malaysiakini was clocking over 30,000 readers a day and on Aug 8, 2000, when 314,000 readers visited the site to find out the verdict of the Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy trial.

There were also low points, as when we faced the hard financial reality of the dotcom bust, with the choice of folding or asking our readers to pay a subscription fee, knowing full well that we would be denying our 100,000-odd readership, free and independent news, the core of malaysiakini's mission. Like all creatures, we have had to adapt to survive!

For our fifth year, we have much in stock for our readers. Malaysiakini will be launching a special website for the general election � www.undi.info, where subscribers will be provided with in-depth election analysis, predictions and interactive maps. We aim to be the leading provider of election news and be the fastest to deliver the poll results.

With the growth of broadband, malaysiakini may introduce short video clips to supplement our news stories. We are also looking at improving the quality and diversity of our content, more investigate journalism to tell the truth as demanded by the new prime minister.

Just as the previous prime minister kept his promise not to censor the Internet, we trust that Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will keep his word too.

On the cards too is malaysiakini's print edition. The weekly will supplement the online daily with in-depth news and views, and reach a wider audience. We had applied for a publishing license in September last year and are still waiting a response from Abdullah.

Malaysiakini believes that independent journalism contributes to the country's struggle against corruption, and provides a crucial channel for public debate, which is clearly a prerequisite as we confront the challenges of trade liberalisation, rapid technology revolution and the challenges of transformation towards a knowledge-led economy.

And what is our birthday wish list? Well, we have two requests. Firstly, keep reading, keep subscribing and if each one of you could get one new subscriber, it would truly help.

Secondly, consider writing to the powers-that-be, suggesting that perhaps its time to level the media playing field in the print media, and issue malaysiakini a publishing licence. Let the public choose the media of their choice. Malaysians deserve no less.

Happy birthday malaysiakini!

Premesh Chandran
CEO Malaysiakini

PS. For responses and comments, I can be reached at prem@malaysiakini.com