Fanzter

We’re excited to announce today that Fanzter has acquired Mustache, Inc., a Richmond, VA-based software development company. Mustache’s founder, Jon Maddox, will be joining Fanzter full-time and will lead technology and product development for the company. When we started Fanzter, we committed ourselves to hiring only the best people, launching the best products, and partnering with only the best companies. Our acquisition of Mustache is consistent with this theme and, in Jon, we are excited about the opportunity to add a brilliant entrepreneur and product-builder to our team.

Mustache has created several popular iPhone applications such as Summizer, Streaks, and Brackets. If you’ve ever tried any of these apps, then you know how elegant and useful they are. We’re proud to add these products to our growing portfolio.

This acquisition gives us an incredibly well-rounded product suite - a family of applications that are informational, entertaining, and a little bit addictive (we hope). It definitely takes Fanzter to a new level of excellence, and we’re looking forward to what’s next. We can guarantee it won’t be boring.

-Aaron

Aaron LaBerge
CEO, Fanzter, Inc.
aaron@fanzter.com

If you’re interested, here’s the official press release about the acquisition.

Do you know how to spot a movement when you see one?

You can spot a movement easily because, according to the Oxford American Dictionary, it’s “a loosely organized group of people who support an idea or change”. Movements are hard to miss, especially with the power of the internet and rapidly growing online communities like YouTube and Twitter. Starting a movement isn’t always the easiest thing to do. A movement needs to be based on something positive, needs a group of people who believe it, and it needs a lot of motivation for others to join.

However, for Sean Combs (a.k.a. P. Diddy) starting a movement is as easy as uploading a video to YouTube.

On April 8 P. Diddy uploaded a video to his YouTube channel stating that everyone needs to start “locking in” on their dreams. Just hours after P. Diddy proclaimed that viewers needed to “turn off the blackberry for a minute, turn off the Twitter, get off the phone, stop gossiping, get off the corner, etc., and lock in”, the term “lockedin” made it onto the top trending topics on Twitter. Then, just two weeks later, the term “lockedin” made it’s way onto the top Twitter trends yet again, a difficult feat for anyone.

P. Diddy had started a movement.

A large number of people began to pick up on the locked in movement and quickly followed in Diddy’s trail, using twitter to message their friends with things such as “I’m vowing to work harder these last two weeks of school than I have worked in my entire college career. Bet on it… #lockedin” (groovetopia) and “Good morning twit fam…let’s get locked in…come on let’s go!” (smazworld).

There was a problem with Diddy’s movement, however. Even though there were thousands of people following the movement, there was nowhere for members of the movement to organize and see who else is joining the movement. There was no central location for members to organize and find more information on the movement.

That is until we decided to get involved.

Fanzter saw a need for an active, modern community website to help power and motivate the locked in movement. Within two days of discovering the movement we had created iamlockedin.com, a place for anyone to see who’s getting locked in, find out more on the movement, and get locked in themselves.

Within one week the IamLockedIn website saw the locked in movement go from a humble 5,000 members to a whopping 15,000.

That’s what we do here at Fanzter. We find things that people just like you would love, and we help them grow. We get locked in and make products that you’ll love to use. With the locked in movement, we spotted a growing, positive movement online and decided to get involved and help the movement grow.

As a new member of the Fanzter team, I can say that this is just one of the reasons I joined Fanzter. We see something people are passionate about and we help it grow, we create products that people love to use, and we do so using incredible talents and technology.

You can expect a lot of incredible things from us in the next few months, similar to the Locked In movement, it’s what we do.

Today our friends at Curious Office launched their newest product - Inkd.

Inkd is a buy and sell marketplace for printed materials (brochures, business cards, flyers, envelopes, etc.) where business owners can choose from original templates made by professional designers. It’s an awesome service and definitely worth checking out.

Enjoy!

-Aaron

Aaron LaBerge
CEO, Fanzter, Inc.
aaron@fanzter.com

Today, we announced that Fanzter and Newsweek have formed a partnership which has Coolspotters powering content modules on Newsweek.com. We’re incredibly excited about this.

Hop on over to Newsweek and check it out.

-Aaron

Aaron LaBerge
CEO, Fanzter, Inc.
aaron@fanzter.com

If you’re interested, here’s the official press release about the partnership.

Today I’m excited to announce that Fanzter, Inc. recently closed an investment round with our friends and new partners at Steamboat Ventures. Steamboat is a top-tier venture firm, and we believe their expertise and approach to growth can help us develop great, new entertainment properties. Dan Beldy will be joining our board of directors, bringing incredible experience as both an investor and entrepreneur.

Coolspotters‘ growth over the last year has been amazing. To date, our growth has been entirely viral with no money spent on marketing or PR. And the product was developed by a relatively small team.

With this new partnership and funding, we are in a very strong position to accelerate the growth of Coolspotters, continue enhancing and extending the product, and begin building new, next-gen products. Apart from those items, we plan on staying lean and focused.

Over the next year, you can expect to see some exciting developments from Fanzter, Inc. as we try to capture the world of opportunity ahead of us. Stay tuned.

Thanks for being with us on this adventure and we continue to appreciate all of your support.

-Aaron

Aaron LaBerge
CEO, Fanzter, Inc.
aaron@fanzter.com

If you’re interested, here’s the official press release about our Series B funding.

Coolspotters is a finalist in the Open Web Awards. We’d like to thank everyone who voted for us in the last round. Thanks to you, we’re one of the one of the 3 finalists in the Fashion category!!

We still need your support. The final round of voting starts today and ends on December 14th, at midnight. You can help us by voting for Coolspotters at Mashable.com (and if you really like us, you can vote more than once each day until the 14th).

Thanks again. We hope you have a joyous holiday season!!

-Aaron

Hard to believe another year has come and (almost) gone. It’s been a great one for Fanzter in so many ways. But as we head into the heart of the holiday season, now is not the time for reflection; now is the time for finding perfect gifts for the special people in our lives. It is officially shopping season.

We’re very proud to announce our first Coolspotters Holiday Gift Guide. Featuring our most popular product categories, the Guide offers our top individual product selections for 2008. There’s a reason our final picks are popular with not only celebrities and public figures, but with the entire Coolspotters community. Very simply, we believe they’re the best. So check it out and see for yourself! The Coolspotters Gift Guide has arrived!

Happy Thanksgiving,
Eric

Coolspotters (our first product) is one of the 10 finalists in the Fashion category for the Open Awards. The Open Web Awards recognizes and honors the top achievements of online companies in 26 categories. We could not be happier to be considered one of the web’s major innovators in the Fashion category.

The final round of voting starts now and ends on midnight November 30th. We would love to have your support. You can help us by voting for Coolspotters at Mashable.com.

Wish us luck!!

Aaron

Aaron LaBerge
CEO, Fanzter
aaron@fanzter.com