(no subject)

[ebonlock]

Has anybody checked out this professional fanfic site Fanlib.com? It's a fascinating experiment from what I can tell, and something I've been grousing about for years. The corporations shouldn't be fighting fans, rather, encouraging their creativity and love of their product:

And instead of dissociating themselves with it, media
partners have been smart enough to tie in, with
HarperCollins, Penguin Books, Showtime Networks, CBS, Simon &
Schuster, and Starz Entertainment all integrating marketing
programs within FanLib.com. For example, a CBS-hosted
promotion encouraged users to write their version of a "Ghost
Whisperer" finale. The website is also wisely capitalizing on
the social networking trend, enabling members to leave
feedback on stories and to set up personal web pages, blogs,
and e-mails.

Maybe companies are starting to buy themselves a clue about the power of fandom. They've got nice straightforward tags for stories and even have a very healthy slash selection. I'm setting up an account now to check things out in more detail. So far it seems pretty cool.

Comments

[scoreboard.livejournal.com]

Worth a look...

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009027.html

I think I remember seeing something about this before. It seems like we're getting the first wave of people seeking to monetize user-created content, or at least the first wave of people building their business model around leveraging it...

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Yeah tir pointed me at Jenkins' blog as well on the subject. The fan response has been fascinating to see, the younger fans are jumping all over the chance to see their fanfic taken seriously by the actual creative teams and companies behind the shows they love. The older fans are eyeing it warily (Fanlib's policies regarding Fair Use are dubious at best) or getting their undies in a knot over a variety of political and personal affronts by the company.

From what I can tell so far only the kiddies are really posting on the site at this point.

[rickey-a.livejournal.com]

yep I've heard of it
There's been a lot of chatter about it in HP fandom, mostly very skeptical. There are many rumors (just rumors) that the companies are actually gathering information to try and shut unauthorized fanfic sites down. They had been asking for a lot of info including your other fic hosting locations. There was also a lot of discussion about them being the authority (insert censor) on what is acceptable adult fic. I don't much more about it, but you might want to search out some of the discussion threads. I any jump out at me I'll forward them to you.
:)

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

They seem to have changed their policy and are no longer asking for other sites you post on (may have just been a beta thing). It is sad, though, that the people working at the company don't come from the fan community and are really screwing themselves on fan relations.

[ranty-rie.livejournal.com]

Fanlib was the wank preluding Delete-gate. There's a lot of it in FandomWank and it wasn't generally received nicely.

Their original TOS were designed to exploit the writer and make profit from fanfic, profit for them, anyway, and then they left all legal what-have-you at the writer to deal with.

I snooped around, read the maddening FAQ - which seemed designed exressively to melt my brain with incoherency - and read their ever changing TOS - aparently once someone complained about it being unfair, they decoded again into saying the same thing with more words - and I didn't like it.

The fanfic doesn't seem good either, as only new writers and very young authors seem to have joined - basically, everyone Fanlib didn't send an invitation to. I got invited a while back to test their beta, but I really didn't like it.

They seem like a bunch of selfconfident enterpriser-wannabes who thought Fandom would subjugate quietly for them to gain the bucks.

But hey, just giving heads up, you're free to check it out on your own and form your own opinion.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

For me what's most disquieting is that they don't really seem to have any protections in place for the folks choosing to post their fic there. I mean not that there are any in place for those of us posting here, but at least we're not relatively certain the companies who own those properties are looking over our shoulders here.

After spending a few minutes snooping through what's been posted in my own fandoms I noticed that everything so far seems to have been written by 15 year old girls. When you start seeing multiple posts by someone named "sparkly_princess" you've just got to wonder.

[ranty-rie.livejournal.com]

It's really a rotting business, and I won't touch that site again without ten feet pole.

I usually use google.since it adapts to the place you're in, language wise, but I guess altavista.com is the option.

Let me know if you need something else, Spanish-wise. My google-fu is strong this season. ;)

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Let me know if you need something else, Spanish-wise. My google-fu is strong this season. ;)

LOL, indeed :) I asked 'cause we're trying to promote the site I work at to the Spanish speaking world as well as the English speaking one. Honestly I'm not even sure where to begin after optimizing it in both languages and making sure to send the URL in to the major search engines.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

BTW, while I've got you, on an utterly unrelated note, would you happen to know any good Spanish-language search engines/link sites?

[pikabot]

I don't know m8uch about FicLib, but what little I do makes me not want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole.