Site News: Executive Editor Dan Koelsch Stepping Down at End of Year

At the end of the year, I will step down as Executive Editor and pass the reigns on to current staff writer Michael Lee. I don’t want to make a big deal out of the transition, but I wanted to say a few words before I go.

Nick Butler and I started MovieViral back in January 2009. It’s crazy to think that it’s been almost 5 years. I met Nick on the Cloverfield forum 1-18-08news.com, along with a few other guys who helped start this website (including Scott Caldwell, our graphic designer). After we all moved to a District 9 forum in 2008, Nick came up with the idea of creating a single website where we could talk about viral campaigns for all films. I came up with the name MovieViral and asked to write on the main site, and the rest is history.

Running this site has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. I’ve gotten access to events and been able to meet people I never thought I would. I’ve developed great relationships with my co-workers and followers from our social networking platforms. It almost makes me feel like my film degree isn’t worthless. I want to make sure everyone knows that I still love this website, and that the only reason I’m stepping down is that after 5 years, I don’t have the drive to take the site where it needs to go. After our first few years of escalating success, we’ve become a bit stagnant. I would love to see us continue to rise in popularity and respect, but I have so much going on in my personal life that I can’t dedicate enough of my time to make it work.

That is why I have promoted Michael Lee to the new position of Editor-in-Chief. Mike has been with the website for over 3 years now and has become one of my most reliable staff members. We have been and will continue to work together as the year comes to an end to make the transition as smooth as possible. We are discussing many ways to improve the site, including bringing on more people for specific job duties. So, be on the look out for that!

I want to thank Nick for helping me create this great website, Scott for being one of the few people to stick with it from the beginning, and everyone else who have helped make this site a success.