Kicksology.net was started in September of 2000 by Professor K to fill a void in the world of sneaker sites. As of summer 2003 Kicksology.net receives over 770,000 visitors a month (that's visitors, not hits or pageviews) from all around the world and that number just keeps growing!

At the time that Kicksology.net was started there were plenty of shoe-related sites on the Web, many of which were and still are great places to go for information about sneakers that are soon to be released or to just talk about kicks.

What was lacking, though, was a site where people could go to find out how good or bad all of these new sneakers really are. So our goal at Kicksology.net is to provide people with an impartial, 3rd party site for the in-depth review of sneakers from a variety of manufacturers.

We review sneakers on a variety of criteria, with the emphasis on function over form (design preferences are so subjective that it won't do much good for us to get too heavily involved in that area), and provide the balling public with our thoughts.

We don't pull any punches, if we think a shoe doesn't make the cut we'll let you know, no matter who makes it or who endorses it.

So before you go to the local store and put down a few Benjamins for a new pair of kicks, we hope you'll give us a visit first. We're looking out for your feet so that the only ankles you break will be on the guy trying to guard you.

How Does the Rating System Work?
We review shoes based on three primary criterion. They are comfort & fit, cushioning, and ankle support. Comfort & fit covers how the shoe feels during game play and whether there is any chafing that can lead to discomfort and blistering. Cushioning is based on how well the shoe protects the body from impact forces. Finally, ankle support is based on the amount of support the shoe provides at the ankle and how well we think it will prevent ankle inversion (higher ankle coverage does not necessarily equal better ankle support).

We employ a five point rating scale with 1 being horrible, 3 being average, and 5 being excellent. The overall score is based on a weighted average of the three criterion noted above. We had originally used a straight average of the three (plus weight), but we've moved to a weighted average because we feel that comfort & fit and cushioning are of more importance in a hoops shoe than ankle support. We're not saying that ankle support isn't important, we know it is, but based on our readers' feedback we found that it is not as important as the other two factors. In our system comfort & fit is given a weight of 2, cushioning a weight of 2, and ankle support a weight of 1. Since we still show break-outs of the ratings on the individual criterion, it's possible to pick out a shoe that is particularly strong in the area of ankle support.

Readers who have been with us for a while might also notice that weight is no longer a scored criteria. We now provide the actual weight of each shoe in ounces. We think that this should be much more useful to our readers than a subjective score. The weight is based on the weight of one empty laced shoe in Men's U.S. size 11. Some shoes may vary a bit in weight between different colorways, but any variance is usually fairly minimal.

Other important factors such as traction, stability, durability and build quality are covered in our long review of the shoe and all of these factors are summed up in our "Buying Advice". We are always open to ideas from our readers on ways to improve our rating system so if you have any ideas please feel free to drop us a line at email@kicksology.net.