I still remember my first moderator gig with some clarity, and how much I enjoyed taking on the responsibility. That was about 7 years ago, on an Unreal Tournament mod forum with about 200 active members.

These days I’m part of a team that runs a network of fansites. The two that I am directly involved in have about 500 people browsing at any one time. The older of the two records that the highest concurrent user count was 6,830, which seems impressive, though it’s a relatively small percentage of the total membership: 202,375.

Things have changed a lot over those 7 years. People began to realize that there are two attractive reasons to run a gaming website: It’s a lot easier to make a profit using adverts than it used to be, and it’s a great addition to your resume if you have aspirations to end up working in the games industry.

Take Guild Wars 2 as an interesting case study: Well over a year off release, and I’ve already found 13 other fansites competing with my own Guild Wars 2 Guru. Most are in various stages of “under construction” and may never make it any further than that, others have a lot of potential: There’s at least one that is run by a professional web-designer, and one run by a programmer with web development skills.

The old-schooler in me feels like that’s just unfair competition, not at all in the ‘indie’ spirit of fansites. The rest of me enjoys being pushed to step up my game. Guild Wars Guru was the number one Guild Wars fansite by a pretty large margin, and thats not an edge I plan to lose.

It’s not easy though; Gone are the days where you just make a basic front page for news, slap on a phpBB forum and open up to the masses. It’s not just about providing a pleasant environment and letting the members do the rest. You are competing on every level with other sites, who all want a piece of the community pie. They might have more resources, more experience, or even more money behind them.

Here’s a quick list of the things a top tier fansite will provide:

• Guides, maps, and other resources.
• Articles and columns.
• Screenshot and video gallery.
• Podcasts.
• Blogs.
• Forum. (But not just any forum – It has to be tooled up with all the latest bells and whistles: Dev trackers, anti-spam measures, picture resizing plug-ins…)

Not to mention it needs to be stable, responsive, and look professional and aethetically pleasing. Oh, and you will need people to maintain it, add future features, and of course, moderate the forum.

That’s what you are up against, in what is very much a case of “if you can’t handle the heat…”.

So how do you possibly compete in this shark-infested cut-throat world of skulduggery and intrigue?

Getting into the fansite business is like marketing a product. You get an idea, you work out your target demographic, you develop it, and you market it.

Here’s the four steps you should be thinking about:

1. Who will you target? Specialization is an easy way to separate you from the pack. What role can you fill that others won’t? Will it be a PvP oriented fansite? A design/suggestion oriented fansite? Perhaps you want to market specifically to mature fans? Take it in the no-nonsense e-sports direction, or aim for a more friendly role-playing community? Maybe you’re ambitious enough to feel like you can tackle multiple sectors with a larger and more general site, even though that will pit you against tougher competition.
2. What are you going to offer? So you figured out where you want to take the website, and know your demographic. Who is the competition? Why do people come to your site instead of theirs? Are you going to offer tools for guild recruitment? Are you going to offer commentated match videos? Are you going to integrate some social networking functions? Blogs for community members, staff?
3. How are you going to develop it? What resources do you have? What resources can you find? What are the capabilities of your current staff, and in what areas do you need to build on that? You may need to find writers, people skilled in graphic design, web developers, or someone with experience of running a community.
4. How are you going to market it? Websites don’t advertise themselves, how are you going to get the word out? Are you going to develop branded signature images and encourage members to use them in forum profiles elsewhere? Are you going to advertise in-game?

If you don’t have the drive and resourcefulness to know you can get through all of the above then you might as well bow out now. The whole process is a hell of a time investment from you and whoever you enlist, so don’t be nonchalant about the commitment.

Too many fansites sink because people didn’t quite understand how much was involved, or because their morale hit the deck when the doors finally opened and nothing but tumbleweed rolled in.

Attn:  LA Twihards!

Hey, this is pretty cool!

The LA Westwood Borders is going to host a “New Moon Live” podcast on Sunday, November 15th @ 2PM.

They will have special guests from the following fansites:  TwilightSeriesTheories.com, TwilightLexicon.com, Twilightsource.com, Twilight Facebook, His Golden Eyes , Twilighters Anonymous , & Twilight Moms!

They’re going to be talking about everything from Edward & Bella to Jacob and the wolf pack, and the Volturri, too!  They even promise some behind-the-scenes details.

Source.

Special Thanks:  Twilight Gossip

Vamos à breve lista de fansites em que nós iremos fazer o cálculo de audiência:
- Habbid
- Habbonados
- HabboFM
- Abobbados
- iHabbo
- YouHabbo

Até o momento só estes fansites estarão sendo monitorados e com a audiência calculada. Caso queira enviar o seu(e ele não está na lista) contate-nos!

Hi there. My name is Erin and I’m a geek. And I’m rather proud of it too, thank you very much.

I’m quite happy to admit I have a very obesessive personality. I recall my first obesession was short lived. I was in love with Macaulay Culkin – for about 2 days. Then I was head over heels for Blur. I loved Damon Albarn and had pictures all over the wall. Then The X-Files – I knew names of episodes, actors, seasons, orders…. I even knew Mulder’s badge number off by heart…. Then it was Buffy and Angel. I must say I met a lot of great people through them. I had a pen-pal called Rick that I met in 1998 through an X-Files message board. We got along so well, that he even brought his new fiance to meet me 4 years later (we’d been writing that long!). We met for the first time at a Buffy meet in London. I’d been a regular visitor on a private Buffy forum called The Espresso Pump – I met some amazing people on there, who I’m still in contact with now.

When I met Gary he became my obsession so geeky stuff kinda took a back seat. Then I discovered that he was a huge Beatles fan, and all fell into place! He appreciates my geekyness as much as I appreciate his. It’s a match made in heaven!

So when I discovered my latest obsession (Yes, it’s the Twilight thing again) I was very surprised with how understanding he was. You see, the last time I had a geeky fan thing going on, I was a teenager and you expect that it’s all part of the growing up hormonal thing. But apparently that never goes away. And thinking about it, when I was meeting with my Buffy friends I was the youngest there – the rest ranged from early 20’s to mid 30’s.

I also am a bit of a merchandise whore, so it’s rather dangerous being a fan of something. My weekly emails include the Forbidden Planet newsletter! I have badges on my work lanyard, and i’m currently awaiting an order of US Twilight merchandise….. yes it costs a lot to be a geek. I remember saving money so hard once to buy the season 4 boxed set of the X-Files – it cost £80 (about $130)! 4 videos for £80! Then about 5 years ago you could get all the re-issued ones for peanuts in discount stores – that’s the rise of DVD for you.

I guess it’s all part of wanting to be part of the movement that’s created by being involved with something like this. That’s something I’ve noticed by becoming part of the Twilight fan thing. The fansites all co-operate with each other and share information. Even Summit (the movie production company) give priority information to the fansites with quotes from the directors. In my time of webmastering, you had to beware your content for fear of being sued! But it seems it’s a big Twilight family, and I like it.

So that’s me. A proud geek and never a sheep

And now I shall perform the dance of geekdom….. watch me now!