FanLib founders dance on its zombified grave: FanLib became Disney's Take180.

[stewardess]

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

Comments

[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.

[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)

[stewardess]

I think what it means is this: fanboy horror vids are where the money is.

Seriously: it takes a lot more bandwidth to host vids; it is currently outside the reach of most fan-run sites. But hosting fanfiction is cheap, and can be done by fans with the help of advertising, donations, or both. FanLib tried to dress up their fanfiction archive with sleazy graphics, and failed.

What Take180 offers is far too limited to gain mass appeal (compared to, say, YouPorn), and eventually production/hosting of similar content will be cheap enough for an amateur website to handle. It will be dead/dying within 18 months.

[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.