Fansites are
websites that are made by
fans. There are fansites on everything -
actors,
movies,
TV shows,
favorite locations etc. The website's
genre often reflects the interests/hobbies of the
webmaster.
Usually, the person runs the website (webmaster), does the
web design and maintenance. Webmasters can be at any age. It's perfect for
teens because they don't need to profit off the website to live. In this experience, they often learn alot about the
Internet and
eBuisness.
Protocols such as
FTP and
Telnet are often learned in the process, as well as many
programming languages such as
HTML,
PHP,
CGI/
PERL. The most common fansites these days are made in
PHP - a
server side programming language.
If the website becomes popular, fans of that website usually ask to become a "
staff member". The "
staff member" usually
works for free, causing them to be unreliable at times and often just there for the
popularity of the status. The "
staff members" main function is usually to
post news on the website. However, it's common now for staff members to update pages because of the new technology of
Content Management Systems.
Fansites are very
community driven. It is not unusual for fansites to include a
Bulletin Board or
Chat Room.
Multimedia commonly weighs the quality of the website. In the early days, the design was more paramount in the website's status. Now,
content has become king.
Some examples of fansite categories can be of the Anime/Cartoon
Pokémon and the US
FOX Cartoon The Simpsons. During the
late 90's, analysis predicted there were over 10,000
Pokémon related web pages on the Internet, thus displaying the true value of fansites.
Nintendo asked many to shut down ("Cease-and-Desist" letters) because they were violating copyrights with scans of
Pokémon Trading Card Game scans,
full episodes, etc.
The Simpsons fansites has an enormous history on the
web. It seems
FOX despises fan made websites. "
Cease-and-Desist" letters became the norm in the
inbox of
The Simpsons website webmasters. Many shut down and even were sued because of it.
During the growth of the Internet, some Corperations did not know how to handle fansites. A company must protect it's
Trademark, or it risks losing it. The Cease-and-Desist letters only sprung up a
bad image for the
company;
hatemail,
hatesites etc. Today, IP (Intellectual Property) Lawyers are used often with large companies to withold the
copyrights and
trademarks of the buisness, but then retain it's
image.
Another rising trend within Fansites is competetion. Many webmasters of fansites within one genre, such as
Star Wars, often always look alike. If you look at one of the most popular Star Wars fansites, TheForce.net, and then every other Star Wars website you will notice a destink similarity in it's design. This is carried out in nearly every fansite genre; though mostly within the Entertainment area.
Though a significant amount of
personal sites which covey a feel of a fansite, most popular fansites (in terms of
traffic) almost always reside on a
domain name, such as TheForce.net or The Simpsons Archive. Fansites can also often be found residing within
free web hosting companies such as
Geocities,
Angelfire, and
Tripod. However, if the website begins to attract more
visitors, the webmaster has to either close the website,
mirror it on other
free website hosting service, or upgrade to
commercial website hosting service.
Following the burst of the
Internet bubble, fansites began to fall off the web. Mainly because many paid their hefty
server bills with
Internet advertising.
Internet Advertising began to fail.
CPM (cost per thousand impressions) rates fell dramatically. Fansite webmasters were unable to pay the bills, and had no other option than closing their websites for good.
Related Information:
- Businesses That Hate Fan Sites May Fan Hate Sites
http://www.newswise.com/articles/2001/12/LOVEHATE.UAR.html