FanLib Is A Year Old

[monster-of-hope.livejournal.com]

Here is the announcement from the site.

It's been a whole year since FanLib first officially opened its doors — can you believe it? It's been some ride. Just look at these numbers:

* 29,000 submissions and counting
* 20,000 plus members
* Hundreds of fandoms represented from "A Bug's Life" to "Zorro."

And we couldn't have done it without each and everyone of you, our FanLibbers.

FanLib is more than just an archive, we're a community — from our forums to friending, messaging and commenting — people are connecting in many different ways.

In the past 12 months, FanLib has made lots of changes, mostly because you asked for them. We started with fiction, then opened our submissions to art and videos. We allowed for pictures embedded in stories. We overhauled our features a number of times to help you get the most out of your visits. But bells and whistles aside, we've always tried to put our members first, and that's why we enjoy being able to feature your works on our front page every day.

With time, the "most popular" fandoms on the site have shifted from the early Harry Potter days, to when Kirk vs. Picard ruled supreme, to the arrival of the anime fandoms such as Naruto and Inuyasha. Through it all, we've noticed a tendency not to divide but to unite. People have discovered new fandoms thanks to a featured fic or a contest, and they've learned new skills (thanks to our art lessons and writing critiques). We believe that good storytelling — be it words or visuals — transcends all fannish boundaries.

Our slogan is "FanLib: Where the Stories Continue…" because, as we say here on No Hiatus, fans never take a break.

So Happy Birthday, FanLib, and thanks to all you FanLibbers who have made it what it is.

EDIT: FanLib actually launched in February-March of 2007, when they added 4,000 1,000 of their 29,000 members. During that period, FanLib gave away free nanoPods.

Fandom's unpaid labor made them money! Aren't you glad?

Comments

[delle.livejournal.com]

Ecstatic. (/Jaffar voice)

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

Bulls--t of the purest ray serene, as SK would say.

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

Yet despite their 'glorious' changes, one majorly irritating effing thing remains the same.

The retarded page splits for fics.

Because we all love having to read 40trillion pages for a 10 chapter fic.

Yay fanlib! Let's party!

*gets snockered on margaritas and the burros' candy stash*

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

29,000 submissions?

20,000 plus members?

In a freaking year?

In a fandom where the "fandom counts" LJ community got 30 or so thousand members in a very much shorter time (does not remember actual time but it wasn't that long)?

I am not a numbers person, but are those numbers really impressive? Especially because if every member did two submissions they'd have 40,000 submissions...?

[shalom]

At 1.45 submissions per person over the course of a year, it hardly seems momentous. I wonder how many members are really just taking up dead space (like mine, opened just to poke things on the forums).

In contrast, squeaky had this on insanejournal yesterday: Overnight last night we hit 200,000 accounts. The growth on this site is amazing. It took over 6 years to reach 100,000 and then less than 3 months to double that.

[ardwynna-m.livejournal.com]

There was a post on fanthropology a few weeks ago, all ecstatic about the growth of Fanlib and how much fun they're having and how the anti-fanlib movement appears to have waned etc, and congratulating Fanlib on finding its viable business model. @_@ OMG whee! Users are so happy to get their ugly tshirts. Still doesn't change the fact that somebody's making money off your work, hanging you out to dry if the lawyers come, and can't actually offer most of fandom anything.

[verdictlesslife.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I'm glad their growth is so slow and that fandom hasn't been seduced by the codswollop.

[manna]

20,000 members, and 1.45 submissions per member? Wow. They can put a brave face on it, but I the site owners are pretty disappointed by that.

I wonder what the stats would look like if all the people who opened name-squatting accounts there deleted them.