There has never been a better time to be a “fan” online. Whether it be via Facebook, MySpace, or even through fan-based social networks like TopFans, fandom on the web is taking off now that fans have more ways of expressing themselves. Just look at the recently deceased Michael Jackson, whose Facebook page now has close to 8 million fans, surpassing the fan count of Barack Obama’s Facebook page (6.4 million fans). SuperFan is a new way for people to express their loyalty and admiration for a show, movie, celeb, professional athlete or politician. SuperFan is a social gaming network where users build their network around who and what their fans of and compete with other fans to become the top fan.
Users of the network can become Fans of all their “Faves,” which include everything from ABC’s show Grey’s Anatomy to tennis star Roger Federer. Fans tag their Faves and can then use credits (via a virtual currency) to become the “SuperFan,” which gives them special privileges in controlling the favorite item or person’s profile. The network has enabled a bidding system to motivates fans to prove they are the number one fan.
Fans can earn points as they contributing more to the site. The credits can then be used to send virtual gifts, posting site-wide messages, customizing profiles with skins and colors and becoming the ultimate “SuperFan.” Fans can also create, take and share quizzes about their Faves, create and post to blogs on their homepages, and create battles (posted to the community) between Faves to drive traffic to the their respective pages (think Angelina vs. Jen). Users are also given a compatibility score with other fans on the site, that recommends friends to you base on your mutual Faves.
SuperFan is the brainchild of the co-founder of Tickle (which was bought by Monster Worldwide for $100 million in 2004), Rick Marini. Marini says SuperFan will make money mainly through e-commerce (via virtual currency sales), advertising and afilliate campaigns (SuperFan has partnerships in place with iTunes, Amazon, TicketMaster, StubHub, ThumbPlay to sell products and tickets.) Board members include founder of F*cked Company and AdBrite Philip Kaplan and Napster founder Shawn Fanning.
SuperFan is a innovative and engaging way for users to express their “inner fan” but I worry about how site will amass actual users when many people are already using Facebook and MySpace as fan hubs. Marini says that the site has implemented integration with Twitter and Facebook Connect to allows users to publish news onto their other social network sites, and also possibly catch the attention of potential fans at the same time. Still, MySpace, especially when it comes to music, and Facebook have a relative monopoly when it comes to combining fans with social networks. But Marini counters that on Facebook anyone can create a fan page for a celeb, show, athlete etc, creating sometimes hundreds of pages for one person or item and distorting the ultimate fan experience. Users often don’t know which page is the official one. With SuperFan, all “Fave” pages are pre-set and monitored so fans cannot create new pages but only add to them.
Great Idea and what a great name! Good luck.
SuperFan is SuperCool!! Gamers might love this too – http://bit.ly/sPXCp
Superfan is just plain out awesome…..this should be checked out by all twitter users!
I am checking Superfan out now, I think I will be joinging so I can create a fan club for http://www.appgiveaway.com
I didn’t click your link.
Don’t count on MySpace and Facebook’s monopoly. If history has taught us anything, it’s that kids will happily migrate to a better social network.
See: friendster -> myspace -> facebook -> twitter -> ???
It’s good to see innovation and entrepreneurial spirit in these challenging economic times.
These comments are obviously being posted by friends/family.. tech crunch has never had 5 positive comments in a row.
Believe it or not, we’re not meat-puppeting our own story.
We definitely appreciate the positive feedback, though!
- nate
The problem with MySpace and FaceBook for fan groups is that people join their fan related communities and that’s it. There isn’t much interaction beyond that. (It is also a problem that plagues bebo and orkut.) One of the best general social networks for fans is LiveJournal, where you’ve got a population of at least 200,000 fans who have a higher than normal activity level when engaging on those communities compared to some of the other networks.
I’d like to see them do well because I like seeing fans succeed. I haven’t joined because I’m not in fandom for the competition. (But I’m not a normal case.) The competition aspect with other fans almost makes it sound memeish like Mafia Wars on FaceBook. Cool, but not for everyone. I prefer the competition aspects and community aspects on BuddyTV.com. I love the community aspects on LiveJournal. I love the informational aspects in the wiki community. I love the promotional chances and finding vids aspect of FanPop.
So we’ll see what happens and what sort of niche they can carve out. I just think the comparison to MySpace and FaceBook is not the best one. Maybe the model would have been better compared to gaiaonline.com?
Thanks for the feedback, Laura.
I’m only one voice among six here at SuperFan, but I can tell you that one of our sincere goals is to find a healthy balance between fans that enjoy the competition aspect (i.e. social gaming) vs. fans who are more interested in finding an outlet for self-expression and interacting with like-minded people.
In reality, fandom is a combination of the two drives, and we see huge opportunities in both areas.
- nate
The problem with competition is that it can have a limited shelf life. It can bring certain types of people in. For fandom, community can really seal the deal and keep people involved, long after their interest in a particular media product has waned.
(Of course, there is also the aspect where community can intentionally keep people away because they don’t want to deal with certain types of people who they see as impeding on their fun. I can think of a large number of examples where this has happened on a micro and macro level.)
Most of the focus for self expression that I’ve seen that the fan community values highly is fan fiction, fan art (with icons and macros), fan vidding, fan related meta, role playing (cosplaying and LARPing) and costuming. Then there are various forms of community support and ingrained competition surrounding and supporting those. (With a lot of the infrastructure providing that not viewed as creative or important. Fans do an amazing job at adapting things not intended to support their activities to work for their needs.)
I’d love to know more about how TopFan defines self expression.
The tech crunch article doesn’t really doesn’t get in to it.
SuperFan. Not TopFan. *sighs*
What’s the point of the site though? This is the same music – social networking – etc site done a million times with no success except with built in ‘gaming’ .. an attempt at getting users to stay attached. I just don’t see it working but its a lovely looking site and the people behind it seem to have a passion for music.
Thanks for the feedback, Timmy. Obviously we hope to prove you wrong, but we’re happy to hear you like the look of the site, and yes, we’re passionate about music. As well as movies, TV, sports, puppies, bouncy castles, even TechCrunch … http://superfan...fave/TechCrunch
- nate
This site is a bust. Check out Michael Arrington’s superfan. Really dumb.
I mostly concur with Laura’s statements above. Facebook and MySpace are only really useful as fan communities when and where the artists involved actively participate in those communities. There are a few bands I follow that use both social networking sites well, and their fan communities are active and useful. But for the most part? People join a group there and that’s it. I know I’ve joined dozens on Facebook never to return again…what’s the point? The messageboards are dead, there is very little use for the comm, information and news is rarely updated in a timely fashion. “Serious” fans are more interested in highly interactive communities such as those on LiveJournal, or messageboards, or mailing lists.
I don’t know many people in media and music fandom who would jump on a site where it seems the goal of the site is really just to make money. Buying one’s way to be considered a “SuperFan”? I think not. Fans are in general more interested in using their creativity to prove their fannish merit, not their credit cards.