User:Dream Focus/411mania

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411mania is a pop-culture website covering movies, television, music, pro-wrestling, politics, sports, video games, and more. The site dates back to August of 1996 and is independently owned by founder Ashish Pabari. 411mania is currently one of the larger members of the Internet Wrestling Community and is ranked #2 behind only WWE.com on the Top100Wrestling.com rankings. 1

Past writers have included author Scott Keith. The site also houses a large online forum community approaching 10,000 registered members. As of June 2006, 411mania claimed four million unique visitors and nearly 20 million impressions per month. 2 Site traffic is claimed to have reached record levels in April 2006.3 Traffic in general is cyclical, usually peaking during March and April of each year, corresponding with the interest in the WWE WrestleMania event that take place around that time.

Brief history

411mania started as 411wrestling slightly prior to the boom in pro-wrestling interest during the late 1990s, competing mainly with SCOOPS Wrestling. The two sites had a brief period where they competed for writers, as well as getting signs on air during major pro-wrestling events. From 1997 to 1999, signs reading "411" and "SCOOPS" were seen weekly on pro-wrestling TV shows such as WWE RAW on USA Network and WCW Monday Night Nitro on Turner Network Television (TNT).

After the dotcom bubble burst in 2001, 411wrestling and most of its competitors lost significant portions of their revenue streams due to a sudden global lack of confidence in the effectiveness of internet advertising, specifically in the oversaturated pro-wrestling sector. Pro-wrestling, a trendy pop-culture phenomenon in the late 1990s, also lost popularity during 2001 and 2002.

Following in the footsteps of SCOOPS, 411wrestling shifted their core focus in 2002 from pro-wrestling only, adding sections for video games and action figures. SCOOPS had tried a similar approach to branching out from pro-wrestling in 2001. Their attempt ended up being a failure and the site eventually stopped operations completely. 411wrestling continued to expand out of the pro-wrestling area and by 2003 had established sections in movies, music, television, video games, action figures, comics, politics, and pro-wrestling. The site also re-launched in 2003 as 411mania to try and avoid the stigma against professional wrestling, which increased when the popularity of wrestling in mainstream culture waned. Editor Jonathan Widro was also promoted to Managing Partner in 2003. The resurgence of internet advertising in 2003 also helped 411mania's expansion.

In 2004, 411mania reshuffled the site structure after the departure of editor Jonathan Widro and other writers, which included Scott Keith and Chris Hyatte, to start InsidePulse.com.

Pro-wrestling remains 411mania's main focus, followed by movies, games and music.

Notable past readers include WWE wrestler Matt Hardy, who, in 2004, responded to a column by 'Asteroid Boy', in which the author claimed that Hardy's career had suffered due to his relationship with Lita. Writing on his site www.wwemattitude.com, Hardy denigrated Asteroid Boy's column. Hardy's response was removed within 24 hours by WWE.

Site editors

• Ashish Pabari - Founder, Editorial Manager
• Larry Csonka - Editor, Pro-Wrestling
• Leonard Hayhurst - Editor, Movies/TV
• Brandon Ratliff - Editor, Music
• Jason Easley - Editor, Politics
• Scott Rutherford - Editor, Sports
• Mike Watters - Administrator, Forums

External links

• 411mania.com
• 411Mania Forum