Today marks our 1-year anniversary of launching the Fanpop public beta! That's right folks, it was one jaar geleden today that we pressed the button and unveiled Fanpop to the world wide web. And since then, we've had millions and millions of people come to the site. It's been great because we've gotten to know so many of u through the community. Whether it be in a fun forum game like A-Z in Heroes of a heat Picks debate about vanilla vs. chocolate, we've really bonded with our users over the past year.

The site has grown and changed so much in the past year. When we launched our spots we just had links, forums and headlines. Now fans can write soapbox articles, uploaden videos and embed from almost any video site with thumbnails, create image galleries for icons, fan art, foto's and wallpapers, and they can even create interactive enquêtes that we like to call Picks. We had a facelift back in March with a wider layout and meer colors. And to help pat all of u on the back and let u encourage one another, we rolled out fan props. We also created a bunch of tools to help u use Fanpop and spread the word like the "Invite a Friend" feature, Picks widget to embed on your MySpace, Xanga, of wherever, and the bookmarklet so u can easily bookmark sites and videos to your spots. It's been a long and crazy jaar and I want to thank Papa, Michael and Cliff for putting so much of themselves into making all of this happen.

We've really been encouraged door all of your messages and commentaren to the team. One of the biggest reasons we keep chugging along and working so hard on making Fanpop a great community site is because of your kind words. But what really bowled the team over was link soapbox artikel titled "link". Not only was it hilarious, but it made us believe that we must be doing something right when cool folks like Amy and other users commentaar about how much they love the site. I sometimes go back just to read the artikel and commentaren again to remind myself that u all are why we get excited about doing what we do each dag (and then I grab my box of tissues because I get so choked up!). The community keeps growing and growing each maand and if we keep getting users as awesome as the ones we have now (adding images, writing soapbox articles, uploading videos, giving props, starting forum games, etc.), then we're in for another really great jaar of Fanpopping! Thank u to all of u users who make the site so darn good.