Five years ago today, I was sitting in my living room with link, link, and link when together we pressed a button on a keyboard and released Fanpop to the world. We had no idea what was in store for us or 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 you all see today. We talked endlessly about features and ideas. Papa and I mocked them up and Cliff and Michael programmed them into reality. You grow pretty tight when you spend that many days and nights together. We went from being Fansters to Fanspots and finally launched as Fanpop 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 desk 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 fans found their way here. Twilight fans came. Harry Potter fans came. Justin Bieber Fans came. One Tree Hill fans came. Glee fans came. Michael Jackson fans came. More and more fans found their way to Fanpop and before we knew it we had thousands of clubs and millions of fans coming to the site. The best part about it was that fans around the world were connecting with fellow fans who shared their passions and were making new friends. Fanpop was actually growing into a bona fide community and the ultimate site for fans.

Fast forward 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 month around the world visiting Fanpop. But more importantly, when I interact with users or read comments on our wall, I hear all the time how much people love the website and how they really feel at home here. It means more to the Fanpop 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 fan clubs which are alive with excited fans who love 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 fans that make Fanpop and we will never forget our commitment to you 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 more in store for the years to come!