Today marks our 1-year anniversary of launching the Fanpop public beta! That's right folks, it was one year ago 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 you through the community. Whether it be in a fun forum game like A-Z in Heroes or 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, upload videos and embed from almost any video site with thumbnails, create image galleries for icons, fan art, photos and wallpapers, and they can even create interactive polls that we like to call Picks. We had a facelift back in March with a wider layout and more colors. And to help pat all of you on the back and let you encourage one another, we rolled out fan props. We also created a bunch of tools to help you use Fanpop and spread the word like the "Invite a Friend" feature, Picks widget to embed on your MySpace, Xanga, or wherever, and the bookmarklet so you can easily bookmark sites and videos to your spots. It's been a long and crazy year 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 by all of your messages and comments 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 article 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 comment about how much they love the site. I sometimes go back just to read the article and comments again to remind myself that you all are why we get excited about doing what we do each day (and then I grab my box of tissues because I get so choked up!). The community keeps growing and growing each month 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 year of Fanpopping! Thank you to all of you users who make the site so darn good.