Five years 以前 today, I was sitting in my living room with link, link, and link when together we pressed a button on a keyboard and released 潮流粉丝俱乐部 to the world. We had no idea what was in store for us 或者 for the site, but we had a dream to build something really cool and we hoped others would like it. For months and months we toiled away at our computers designing and coding what 你 all see today. We talked endlessly about features and ideas. Papa and I mocked them up and Cliff and Michael programmed them into reality. 你 grow pretty tight when 你 spend that many days and nights together. We went from being Fansters to Fanspots and finally launched as 潮流粉丝俱乐部 on August 1, 2006. We had a small number of test users that had been using our closed beta site but now we were opening the doors to the public and it was scary. What if no one came? What if people hated the site? What if we had to give up and go get 台, 办公桌 jobs at some office cube farm again? So many "what ifs" overwhelmed us that day.

After our initial launch and some press from sites like link and link the first few months things were pretty quiet and we were honestly pretty scared that it wasn't going to work out. We knew that we had a good product, but we didn't know how to get users to come. Slowly but surely though, the 粉丝 found their way here. Twilight 粉丝 came. Harry Potter 粉丝 came. Justin Bieber 粉丝 came. One 树 爬坡道, 小山 粉丝 came. 欢乐合唱团 粉丝 came. Michael Jackson 粉丝 came. 更多 and 更多 粉丝 found their way to 潮流粉丝俱乐部 and before we knew it we had thousands of 俱乐部 and millions of 粉丝 coming to the site. The best part about it was that 粉丝 around the world were connecting with fellow 粉丝 who shared their passions and were making new friends. 潮流粉丝俱乐部 was actually growing into a bona fide community and the ultimate site for fans.

Fast 前锋, 期待 to August 1, 2011 and today we are the #372 biggest site on the internet according to link. According to our internal metrics we have over 13 million users a 月 around the world visiting Fanpop. But 更多 importantly, when I interact with users 或者 read 评论 on our wall, I hear all the time how much people 爱情 the website and how they really feel at 首页 here. It means 更多 to the 潮流粉丝俱乐部 four that we created a place on the web that didn't exist before which people can't live without now. That's pretty special and so are each and every one of our fantastic Fanpoppers. We feel like proud fathers who have watched our little website grow into this amazing network of 粉丝 俱乐部 which are alive with excited 粉丝 who 爱情 to talk about all sorts of topics that we could have never imagined. We know that without all of our awesome and dedicated users, we wouldn't be where we are today. It's the 粉丝 that make 潮流粉丝俱乐部 and we will never forget our commitment to 你 guys. We've spent the past five years building features and designing the website for you. But we're not done yet folks! So keep on Fanpopping, because there's much 更多 in store for the years to come!