Ode to FanHome

Jeezus, did Kevin M. Cabral screw the pooch when I look over domain registrations in InterNIC and what not this morning.

This summer I had taken time to just check up on domain registrations for names of sites that used to be part of the FanHome.com network – names like www.baseballboards.com, www.hockeyboards.com, www.footballboards.com. Very valuable domain names that already have other domains pointing to them and thus great recognizability on the Internet.

Kevin let each of these wayward domain names expire, pissing away their value much like he pised away the value of FanHome when he originally got offered to sell the site out for 50 thousand dollars in 1999 (which is more than it’s worth now).

What does this have to do with FanHome? I don’t know exactly. I DO know I am missing the original site since I read an article on the Howard Dean Connection and the phenomenon that is bringing the Dot-Com age back into chic. In 1999-2002 I was intimitaley tied to FanHome in one way or another. In 1998 I had been a dot-commer and went dot-bomb like the rest of the industry… The thing is, there was this sense, this aura, that always drove you when you were involved on these projects (be it FanHome or Weblink Communications Inc – my former Dot-Com bosses)… “The Revolution” was a phrase that was used so much, as a joke of sorts but at the same time, it was the attitude of those working together on any given project. We weren’t just changing how business was done, we were forging a new entry into business entirely.

Of course, then things went to SHIT with FanHome.

I say things went to shit – I burned out of course. I was one man doing most of the administration work even though I wasn’t doing the software side of it. I did have underlings and I did have support from those underlings, along with the remainder of administration at FanHome… But 60 thousand users just got to be too much… no pay? That too. The fact I was in love? That three… I didn’t want to spend time talking about AEC and Ledge again, I wanted to focus on my own life and the fact that I needed to get my ass in action (even though it’s tough to do with my medical condition).

That was more than a year ago of course.

So where do we sit now? FanHome remains shit as part of the Insiders network – using the worst message board software availible to message board users (EZ Boards) while retianing a loyal base of users that slowly errodes while Kevin continues to live the rich-boy life. Matt Rogish, technical database administrator extrodinaire is off somewhere working a solid job. I think he finally graduated from the University of Miami (Ohio) while Alberto Corral, COO of Fanhome, continues towards a masters degree and is looking at a new job coming to him in the near future (if he doesn’t already have it).

And John F? Who cares, he’s blogging….