Fanmode ver. 4
Fanmode readers would have noticed some tweaks to the format over the past week or so. These long-overdue changes are meant to help readers better navigate through the site and help us better do what we set out to do.
Fanmode was set up to highlight toy-related links that don’t appear on high-traffic web sites. We’re here to point out the obscure and the forgotten, to link to the neat Flickr photo with a few hits instead of the one currently on Explore, to tell you about the quirky-cool line most collectors ignore.
We’re less interested in what toy fans can buy next and more interested in seeing what toy fans can do with what they have now. We’re particularly keen on discovering what clever things creative toy fans are doing with their toys whether it’s an impressive custom, a whimsical photo, an amazing digirama, a creative Lego MOC or an ingenious fanmode.
To better do this, the toy links format has been changed. The front page now highlights the last 15 toy links published with the Toy Links category view now functioning as the toy links archive. Finding related links in the archive will be much easier thanks to the tags. As this new format is something of a reboot, there might not be many tagged links at the moment but given the fact Fanmode adds over 100 toy links every month, readers should find reason soon enough to spend time sifting through the archives.
Discontinued categories (the old toy links format, interesting Creative Commons-licensed toy photos, English-language review roundups, the Optimus Prime-themed love fests, etc.) still exist though they aren’t visible on the sidebar. The reason they’ve been removed was to direct the attention of first-time visitors to currently emphasised categories.
We hope these changes will help readers better understand the Fanmode mission statement. We set out to remind you toys are fun and to show you why creative toy fans are cool, and we’ve had a blast doing that for the past 21 months. We expect things to only get better.
