FanFiction.Net - Is This a Star Business?

FanFiction.Net (often abbreviated as FF.Net or FFN) is an automated fan fiction archive site. It was founded on October 15, 1998 by Los Angeles computer programmer Xing Li, who also runs the site. The first fics to be written were a few stories about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As of 2005, FanFiction.Net is the largest and most popular fan fiction website in the world. It has nearly 1.3 million users, and hosts stories in over 30 languages.

Wikipedia defines fan fiction as, "Fan fiction (alternately referred to as fanfiction, fanfic, FF or fic) is a broadly-defined term for stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator. Works of fan fiction are rarely commissioned or authorized by the original work's owner, creator, or publisher; also, they are almost never professionally published. Fan fiction, therefore, is defined by being both related to its subject's canonical fictional universe while simultaneously existing outside that universe.[1] Most fan fiction writers assume that other fans are reading their work, so their readers have knowledge of the canon universe (created by a professional writer) in which their works are based."

Now, from what I gather, fan fiction is a growing genre of Internet publishing. It's probably growing much faster than 10% per year in a bursty manner based on the popularity of the latest sci-fi or fantasy book released. The Internet (and the cellphone in countries like Japan) makes it easy for fans to write short stories around their favorite characters and push it out for review from "beta readers" who act as unpaid editors and help improve the work.

And who is the market reader in this space? It's fanfiction.net! You run a search on Google for fan fiction and they come up as search result number 1 - ahead of the Wikipedia entry for fan fiction. And their Alexa rank is 355. So I believe that this business probably has star potential. The only issue is that if you look at their Alexa graph, it seems to show a declining trend. Perhaps a competitor has come up with a substitute offering?