Fanpop hasn’t quite been online for a week yet but already we’ve been privileged to have received some encouraging feedback from several blogs. Since we don’t yet have a media relations page, I thought I’d highlight some of the coverage here.
Mashable’s Pete Cashmore reviewed the site on Monday and had this to say:
“For some reason, I really like Fanpop. I think it’s the instant accessibility for the average user – everyone’s a fan of something, and it’s a really simple way of expressing your personality by associating yourself with brands. What’s more, the design and usability are impressive…”
“…I think Fanpop is pretty neat. I see this as another StumbleUpon – simple, fun, and easy to explain to the average Internet user.”
On the whole, Pete really seemed to “get” the site. Read the full review here.
Chris Durr of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer did a nice write-up today on the PI’s new social networking blog. He writes about Fanpop in the context of MySpace stating, “Fanpop doesn’t have that stale taste of a wannabe MySpace site.” And notes that “what’s unique about Fanpop is that it offers content as well as functioning as a fan site.” (read the rest of the article here).
Less flattering, but nevertheless valid is John Pospisil’s article about how the social networking space is getting overcrowded (“Social networking for all”). Pospisil’s expresses concern that we are seeing bubble-like levels of startups in the space — fanpop being included as part of this stampede — and suggests that market saturation might be on the horizon:
“People (even young people) only have so many hours each day, and can only commit their time and energy to limited number of social networking platforms. And of course there are only a finite number of advertising dollars to go around to fund all of these sites.”
I don’t disagree with him on the above. I would suggest that, our position is that Fanpop is *not* primarily a social networking platform. First and foremost, Fanpop’s goal is to connect fans with the best content on the web through collaboration. The social network is a complementary part of the overall product offering. At the end of the day, social networking exists on our site as an integrated part of the feature set. However, you do not need to participate in the social network to take advantage of the rich content our site is steadily acquiring. Additionally, while advertising dollars in the “fat tail” of the advertising market may be highly saturated and highly competitive, we believe that the long tail will provide ample opportunities in overlooked niches that are dying to connect with user eyeballs.
We’ve also had some nice Spanish and German language coverage as well. But our favorite blog post to date comes from one of our newest fans, Kimmiekins. Kimmiekins writes:
“My current obsession is Fanpop…check it out, it’s fun (and addicting).”
Thank you Kimmiekins. It’s passionate users like you that will help make Fanpop a place worth visiting and kicking back with fellow fans in the future. And seriously, user feedback is bar-none the best kind of feedback a fledgling website can hope for.