CF's one-year milestone...
On February 15th of 2006, I decided it was time for Cyclone faithful to have a place to call their own. It was time we had a place where there were no boundaries or divisions between us. It was time for a community where everybody could contribute in any way and at any time. The principle was simple, to help people realize that the days when we could afford to be a divided fan-base were over and that we now truly had to come together if we wanted to achieve any of our common goals.
The best way of fostering excitement and energy among the fans was simply to create a place where everybody could share ideas and opinions about Iowa State athletics and to give them a way to stay informed and interested throughout the year, regardless of the season. The result, CycloneFanatic.com.
When the site was first launched, there was a front-page and a basic forum, that's it. As the site exploded with popularity it became obvious that the fans had been waiting a long time for a place to call their own. As spring turned to summer, we transitioned platforms and systems to better accommodate the growing member-base and to allow for future feature enhancements.
Once the site was well established and we were on the systems that could accommodate it, we introduced quite a few new features over the remainder of the year... revamped forums, private messaging, chat rooms, calendars, buddy lists, user contributable photo galleries, a user blogging system, an online store, a cool and innovative 'auto-feed' system and most recently a test version of the upcoming classifieds and auction system.
