- MacWorld discussed Fancred, a new effort at a social networking site for sports fans. “The sports fan-focused social network is quietly building momentum in a quest to do for sports what LinkedIn has done for professionals. ‘We think we’re building the world’s largest fan network,’ said CEO Kash Razzaghi.” Their strategy involves turning fans into marketing pros. “[T]he platform is also targeting college campuses in a strategy that cribs liberally from the playbook of popular messaging apps. Fancred offers college internships to students who want to be the app’s brand ambassadors… Gaining users on campus will translate to professional growth.”
- Some other sites are cribbing more than fans’ time for their projects. Rocket News 24 pointed out how a Nintendo character montage included a fan’s artwork. “With over 12 million members and billions of page views per day, Japanese art submission site Pixiv is submitted to by up-and-coming creatives the world over, making it one of the best places for people to showcase their work and get noticed. While few artists have a problem with their work being featured or embedded on other sites–indeed, with proper citation many are glad of the free publicity–Pixiv’s terms of use make it explicitly clear that users should not take or insert a featured artist’s work in another product without prior permission.”
- Meanwhile Fashion & Style speculated that the new Star Wars film would include a fan-created character. “Another name on the list is Captain Phasma, a character who, as SK points out, has only appeared in a fanfic called “Tarkin’s Fist”. Despite the limited information about the role, /Film, who picked up the story earlier this week, speculates that Gwendoline Christie is a strong contender for the part.”
- The Hollywood Reporter discussed Paramount’s use of Wattpad to promote the film Project Almanac. “Wattpad’s 35 million users, read, write and engage with stories uploaded online, including a fair amount of fan fiction. The platform…is particularly popular among young women and previously partnered with films like Fox’s The Fault in Our Stars, Universal’s The Purge: Anarchy and Ouija and three Relativity titles: last year’s Romeo and Juliet, Best of Me and Beyond the Lights… ‘We have been watching Wattpad for quite some time and think it’s a really exciting and new emerging online social destination, not only for young adult book fans to discover and share stories, but beyond that, it’s becoming a kind of a hub and influencer-type community, and something that’s been bubbling up in terms of social platforms,’ Paramount’s senior vp, interactive marketing Megan Wahtera tells THR.”
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