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spiderbraidsMichael's Winx Club
(June 25, 2004 - June 7 or July 7, 2019)
Michael's Winx Club's final front page
The Facts
Founded by Michael Grant as an offshoot of his multi-show network of fansites Michael's Favorites, this website was almost certainly the big kahuna of Winx fansites, with stuff like cast listings, screengrabs, merchandise information, and the latest news... especially the latest news, as he proudly declared his site "Your Trusted News Source" :-) The website was split over two domains, michaelsfavorites (the original site) and michaelsfavorites2 (mainly the Winx site)
The Personal Connection
Many of my early interactions with Michael were rather unpleasant (to put it lightly...) When I first created my differences page, I linked to his page, as most Winx fan pages would, which soon got me an email from Michael asking me not only to tone down the negative language, but also to remove the link to his site (well, that's a first :-\) Michael also told me off for using his screengrabs to make parody motivational posters (mostly understandable, except for the fact that I credited the site) as well as reviewing fanfics submitted for a contest on his site :-\ However, I did submit plenty of news for his news page over the next decade-plus, without much antagonism (my last news submission was this newscast video promoting KidsClick's Winx broadcasts, in 2017)
The Demise
Although the rest of the website stayed pretty much stagnant after Season 6, Michael kept the news pages updated right up to the end, even making annual trips to the Las Vegas Licensing Expo to take photos of Rainbow's booth and trying to get the latest upcoming skinny on the show :-)
The last post he ever made on his news page was on June 5, 2019... After posting images of Rainbow's Licensing Expo booth, he posted: "I am at a crossroads on whether to continue, as it does take an extradorinary amount of time, money, resources, etc. that are greatly limited on my end. The web host service provider accounts expire this month, so there's a little time to decide, but not much." Turned out there really wasn't very much time to decide... Just a few days later on the 7th, the main michaelsfavorites domain suddenly became inaccessible, taking part of the site with it. I sent an email to Michael about the closure, and he pretty much confirmed the end of his site, saying "time for other things." The portion of the website hosted on michaelsfavorites2 (including the front page) would remain online for about a month more before being blanked out.
(June 25, 2004 - June 7 or July 7, 2019)
Michael's Winx Club's final front page
The Facts
Founded by Michael Grant as an offshoot of his multi-show network of fansites Michael's Favorites, this website was almost certainly the big kahuna of Winx fansites, with stuff like cast listings, screengrabs, merchandise information, and the latest news... especially the latest news, as he proudly declared his site "Your Trusted News Source" :-) The website was split over two domains, michaelsfavorites (the original site) and michaelsfavorites2 (mainly the Winx site)
The Personal Connection
Many of my early interactions with Michael were rather unpleasant (to put it lightly...) When I first created my differences page, I linked to his page, as most Winx fan pages would, which soon got me an email from Michael asking me not only to tone down the negative language, but also to remove the link to his site (well, that's a first :-\) Michael also told me off for using his screengrabs to make parody motivational posters (mostly understandable, except for the fact that I credited the site) as well as reviewing fanfics submitted for a contest on his site :-\ However, I did submit plenty of news for his news page over the next decade-plus, without much antagonism (my last news submission was this newscast video promoting KidsClick's Winx broadcasts, in 2017)
The Demise
Although the rest of the website stayed pretty much stagnant after Season 6, Michael kept the news pages updated right up to the end, even making annual trips to the Las Vegas Licensing Expo to take photos of Rainbow's booth and trying to get the latest upcoming skinny on the show :-)
The last post he ever made on his news page was on June 5, 2019... After posting images of Rainbow's Licensing Expo booth, he posted: "I am at a crossroads on whether to continue, as it does take an extradorinary amount of time, money, resources, etc. that are greatly limited on my end. The web host service provider accounts expire this month, so there's a little time to decide, but not much." Turned out there really wasn't very much time to decide... Just a few days later on the 7th, the main michaelsfavorites domain suddenly became inaccessible, taking part of the site with it. I sent an email to Michael about the closure, and he pretty much confirmed the end of his site, saying "time for other things." The portion of the website hosted on michaelsfavorites2 (including the front page) would remain online for about a month more before being blanked out.
