[identity profile] stewardess.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] life_wo_fanlib
Another news article 1 about FanLib partner Craig Singer's newest venture casually mentions FanLib has become Disney's Take180.

This is the second article 2 confirming Disney bought FanLib; I assume the information appears in a Disney financial report. Any Disney stockholders out there? The financial report may state the price paid for FanLib.

Take180 is visually ugly, and laden with "challenges" and prizes. It looks exactly the way you would expect FanLib to look after a quick re-do to serve Disney's interests. It is also riddled with the celebrity brown-nosing rampant at FanLib. The pitch (Be part of a creative community. Get in the spotlight. Prizes happen.) is nearly indistinguishable from Chris Williams's promotion of FanLib in July, 2007. 3

The men who owned FanLib (brothers Chris and David Williams) did not have the balls 4 to tell the 25,000 members of the sell-out. They have said nothing publicly on the subject (according to my daily news webcrawl since June, 2008). At the time of the closure, I speculated the only confirmation might be a FanLib-like product from Disney. 5 Now we have it. FanLib closed on August 4, 2008. 6 Take180 opened around August 29, 2008. 7

I had the lowest possible expectations of the Williams brothers, but even I didn't expect them to lie about matters of importance — not when the lies would inevitably be exposed. Apparently they thought lying was the better trade-off: better to lie and cowardly escape the reaction of fandom, even though they would be exposed later as liars.

Perhaps the FanLib founders feared their members would join Take180 and make a wreck of its forums, sullying its Disney purity. Perhaps they feared FanLib's failure 8 would foul Take180 before it was out of the dock. Or perhaps Disney publicists, reviewing the Williams brothers' track record 9 in communicating with fans, ordered them to be silent.

Five months have gone by since FanLib closed. Its members are scattered; articles about FanLib have dwindled. If nothing else, the lies bought time.

There's more. Craig Singer's current venture, the film Perkins' 14, came about this way:

"A year and a half ago, Singer was sorting through hundreds of one-paragraph ideas submitted through his Web site, FanLib [...]. The 10 fan finalists were then asked to create a 'video pitch' for their idea. It was a fan in North Carolina who came up with the premise of 'Perkins 14' [sic]— about a town that has suffered 14 child abductions, and the obsessed cop [...] who finds that the kids have been turned into zombified killing machines." 10

Craig Singer used a FanLib member's original idea to launch his new career? 11 I need a stronger stomach. Edit: Jeremy Donaldson's idea was submitted through massify.com in association with FanLib. 12

Another thing: numerous people in fandom (and outside of it) distrusted the Disney buyout rumor because it was farfetched Disney would believe a fanfiction website could be profitable (especially after FanLib's example). But Disney had no such foolish belief. Fanfiction appears at Take180 only as an interest in member profiles.

Take180 is built from FanLib's corpse, using a single limb added in October, 2007, vid hosting. 13 (Edit: Turns out this is literally true. Take180 URLs indicate it lives on FanLib's former servers.) Instead of the female dominated world of fanfiction, Take180 goes after amateur film makers — a fandom YouTube; you can imagine the corporate orgasm the concept would induce — presumably to gain the young male demographic FanLib slavered after. 14

Just one more thing. Confirmation of the Disney buyout means we must reconsider FanLib.

As a fanfiction archive and as a fandom community, FanLib was a disaster. 15 But as a money-making venture for a small group of wealthy white businessmen, it was a success: with $100 million 16 to spend on acquisitions, Disney probably paid quite a bit more for FanLib than its initial investment of $3 million in venture capital. 17

This is bad news for fandom; it will encourage future greedy and destructive corporate interference with fan creations.

Sources

1. Filmmaker from North Jersey put fans in charge by Jim Beckerman, January 4 2009.

2. Pay-TV Best Practice in Times of TV 3.0 by Guy Bisson, October 31 2008.

3. Chris Williams Responds to Our Questions about FanLib by Henry Jenkins, May 25 2007.

4. FanLib bought by Disney? Too good to be true... by partly_bouncy at Fanthropology, June 4 2008.

5. The Disney buyout rumor just won't die by Stewardess, August 9 2008.

6. FanLib Shuts Down, SoCalTech, July 29 2008.

7. Take180 FAQ, August 29 2008.

8. What businesses learned in 2007 about the digital race by Steve Cody and Sam Ford, December 28 2007.

9. Mimbo (Chris Williams) opens a dialogue with fans in Telesilla's livejournal, May 17 2008.

10. Filmmaker from North Jersey put fans in charge by Jim Beckerman, January 4 2009.

11. Craig Singer Looks to the Internet for Perkins' 14 by Kyle Rupprecht, October 21 2008.

12. Perkins' 14 in Post Production in NYC by Joseph B. Mauceri, August 18 2008.

13. FanLib: One Year Later by partly_bouncy at Fanthropology, March 26 2008.

14. Internet Goes Nova Over Showtime, Starz, Moonves Partnered FanLib.com by Mary McNamara, May 28 2007.

15. A FanLib Retrospective by Stewardess, July 25 2008.

16. Disney Investing up to $100MM in New Worlds, Virtual World News, January 2 2008.

17.
Storytelling Social Net FanLib Launches With $3 Million In Funding by David Kaplan, May 18 2007.

Date: 2009-01-05 02:46 am (UTC)
branchandroot: oak against sky (Default)
From: [personal profile] branchandroot
Yes, I think this demonstrates the real danger of fandom's increasing profile: not persecution but takeover, corruption, corporate parasitism. And the profile isn't really lower-able, I mean the web is the web, and I like being able to find fellow fans. But this highlights the new dangers we have to start being aware of. I'm not sure it's entirely possible, even with the web, to reach out enough to our newcomers and warn them to check their shiny prize-candy for poison and razor blades, but it seems like a worthwhile thing to start trying anyway.

I am also darkly amused that Syn hit the nail on the head, even though she was talking about LJ not Fanlib: it isn't IPO these people are after, it's sell-off. They don't care that the product is trash, they just want to make a wad of cash before the 2.0 bubble bursts. I can't help but think this is going to serve Disney right in another few years when it all goes kablooey.

Date: 2009-01-05 02:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quietus-x.livejournal.com
Well, it's obviously not meant to be targeted at fic writers, because most decent fic-writers, especially the LJ ones, are too mature to be lured in by all the stupid graphics and stuff on the site.

So now the question is: is this better or worse than the tweens who are writing fic on Quizilla? Can we consider this a stepping stone between fannishness and fic-writing, for younger writers?

Because let's be honest here, a lot of fandoms can be pretty hostile (or even just passively unwelcoming) towards shitty writers, even if they're new or whatever.

I mean, it sucks that they're exploiting fandom, but if this is the way they're going, there's no way they'll appeal to the bulk of fandom.

Date: 2009-01-05 03:02 am (UTC)
branchandroot: oak against sky (Default)
From: [personal profile] branchandroot
*dryly* Well, at least Quizilla isn't going to try to leech their ideas for profit outside of the ad income. I mean, honestly, using a fan's idea as the base for a commercial effort? Hasn't he heard of MZB? This was exactly the situation that led to a nasty lawsuit and made the book publishers so paranoid they ordered all their authors not to even look at fanfic. And if the idea in question was offered through a forum that explicitly made it allowable for him to do that... that's something people deserve to be warned about, especially new and young fans who may not yet have the native caution to be suspicious of offers to 'legitimize' their ideas.

Personally, I think the hostility toward new writers and cheerfully id-based writers is one of the uglier sides of fandom. I don't delude myself that it's going to magically go away, but I also don't think that fact is any reason go along with it.

(Edited for spelling)
Edited Date: 2009-01-05 03:04 am (UTC)

Date: 2009-01-05 03:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quietus-x.livejournal.com
One of the biggest failings of fandom is that we don't have a kiddie pool to play in, especially since we drive away potential newbies if they're sensitive and bad writers (as all brand-new writers are). The best thing a practicing ficwriter can do is write and not publish their stuff on the internet, especially if it's badly-written Mary Sue-style crap that is almost universally the first thing a ficwriter ever writes (myself included, lolz).

People are becoming aware of that, though, so maybe things will (hahah yeah right) change. Or something.

Right now, the commercial stuff's being set up with permission, by people who own the intellectual rights to the content being ficced (actually, some of the challenges on the site aren't that bad -- stuff like "show us your superpower", or "give us an outfit for a dude", which makes me kinda unhappy but I think there's some sort of prize system involved). So I'm not sure how I feel about take180, aside from "it's too kiddy".

Date: 2009-01-05 03:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quietus-x.livejournal.com
Hey, that PornoTube thing is going really well right now, last I heard. ;)

Something vidders have as an advantage is that while it's not "professional" to host their stuff on Vimeo or Imeem or stash them in Mediafire, Take180's not going to be allowed to do that, because they're a real company, and they won't make money that way.

Does anyone want to start a community pool on when Take180 goes under?

Date: 2009-01-05 03:07 am (UTC)
branchandroot: oak against sky (Default)
From: [personal profile] branchandroot
*delicate shudder*

*grins* You make a good point, though. On the one hand niche markets seem to make for successful sites; on the other, pay-for content on the web seems to make for absolute fail. I'm actually kind of surprised Disney doesn't know that already. Maybe they, too, just want to make hay money while the sun shines and won't mind when it dies.

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