View source for Lonelygirl15.com

{{lowercase}}
:''This is a wiki article about the lonelygirl15.com Web site. To visit the Web site, see http://www.lg15.com/lonelygirl15''.
{{Infobox Website
| name           = lonelygirl15.com
| url            = http://www.lonelygirl15.com

<!-- Optional Fields -->
| logo           = [[Image:Lonelygirl15COM.jpg|120px|LG15 logo.]]
| screenshot     = 
| caption        = 
| slogan         = 
| affiliation    = [[lonelygirl15]]
| type           = Series site
| launch date    = July 16th, 2006
| current status = 
}}
'''lonelygirl15.com''' is a sub-section of [[LG15.com]] and is home to the [[lonelygirl15]] video series.

==Site features==
*'''[[List of lonelygirl15 videos|The Videos]]''' &mdash; The newest video is displayed at lonelygirl15.com.  Older videos are displayed in a column on the left.  Fan responses are displayed in a column on the right.
*'''[[Comment board]]''' &mdash; Below the videos is the comment board, where members can leave comments.  This requires registration at the forums.  Once that account is created, it can be used on both the comment boards and the forums.
*'''[[Forum]]s''' &mdash; The forums are generally considered the central hub of lonelygirl15 fans.  Discussion of the series and other topics takes place here.

==Site design==

On the 22nd July 2007, www.lonelygirl15.com recieved yet another upgrade. The redesign included numerous changes to the look and feel of the site, the forums and LGPedia itself. The lonelygirl15 home page now lacks the Greek letters at the bottom of the page.

The site seems to be no longer supported by banner ads. It has also changed the embedded videos from those hosted on [[Revver]] to those on [[YouTube]]. It has not been declared why but it may be to make it easier for fans to add video responses to the videos.

As of July 2007, about 15,811 people are registered at the forums.

==History of the site==

The site launched on July 16th, 2006, when a  fan named [[Bukanator]] announced in the comments of YouTube that he had set up a fan site for [[Bree]].  Many were [[Down The Rabbit Hole: The Hunt For Bree|already suspicious]] of Bree, and the registration of a fan site by a supposedly 38-year-old male fan was strange.  Members on YouTube looked up the site registration in a WHOIS directory and discovered that the site had been registered on May 12th, 2006, more than a month before Bree posted her [[First Blog / Dorkiness Prevails|first vlog]].

When confronted about this discrepancy, Bukanator and [[Daniel]] gave the following story.  Daniel had registered the site to tease Bree about how she was going to be famous.  Bukanator later e-mailed Daniel about setting up a fan site, and Daniel told Bukanator that he could use www.lonelygirl15.com.

Although almost nobody believed this story, in the month of August fans began to visit the [[phorum]], the message boards at lonelygirl15.com.  By the end of August, the [[Down The Rabbit Hole: The Hunt For Bree|hunt for Bree]] had drawn the attention of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Business Week.  While the site was poorly maintained, and the messageboards largely unmoderated, hundreds of people registered for the site.

As fans grew frustrated with Bukanator's poor moderation, a new fan site which became known as [[The Children of Anchor Cove]] was founded on September 4th.  Most fans decamped to the Cove.  On September 6th, lonelygirl15.com created a new [[forum]].  The old [[phorum]] was eventually taken down.  On the evening of September 7th, [[A Message From The Creators]] was posted on the site, where [[The Creators]] told the truth about the series.  The forums at lonelygirl15.com became primarily devoted to [[Cassieiswatching]], at one point, over 2/3rds of the posts at the forum were in the Cassieiswatching boards. Following a chat on [[June 5 chat with Greg|June 5th]], in-character chat sections were added to the forums, to add further interactivity with the series. 

Fans learned that in reality the site had been registered by [[the Creators]] and built with the help of [[Grant Steinfeld]].  It is unknown why they were unaware that Web site registration data are publicly available.  Steinfeld was dismissed from the project at some point in July, before the site became popular.

Once Cassieiswatching died down, discussion gradually returned to lonelygirl15.

==Site updates==
* On Sept. 6, a new [[forum]] was created on the site.
* On Sept. 29 the [[LGPedia]] was launched.
* On November 19th, 2006 the server that hosts the lonelygirl15 website was updated to include a [http://www.lg15.com/lonelygirl15/?page_id=112 member directory] and member sign in.
* On November 30th, 2006 the site began to host a flash-based chat [[LG15 Chat room]].
* On December 16th, 2006, the [[LG15 Store]] was launched.
* On July 22nd, 2007, the site underwent a drastic design makeover, causing [[LG15.com]] to take over as the "main" site, and loneygirl15.com to strictly cover the videos from the lonelygirl15 series.
[[Category:Site features]]