Exclusive: Knighty Makes Advertising Deal With Poundland

 Known mainly for developing the brony fandom's largest pornsite, infamous web tycoon Graeme Pollard (aka Knighty) has recently announced a near-final partnership with notable European store chain Poundland, stating in the leaked press release that "as a cutting-edge web service Fimfiction is constantly evolving to meet the demands of its customers, and with our new partnerships we wish to expand our userbase to include the general English populace as well".


 It may be hard for some of us to grasp, but there exist people who buy clothing that doesn't have pastel horses plastered all over them and prefer something more subtle, e.g. company logos and in-jokes for various subcultures. These freethinking, socially conscious types are the ideal market for a literary site like Fimfiction, and since most of them are prone to installing adblockers Knighty is of the opinion that the best way to reach them is via physical merchandise sold at reputable retailers which they often attend, such as Poundland.

 According to the press release, merchandise will include "t-shirts, scarves, decaf coffee mugs, cricket bats, and miniature staff figurines", the latter of which is calculated to provide free publicity from Ashens. Aside from introducing new people to the sites, Knighty also claims "this additionally enables our existing users to show their support for the site if they happen to have any spare pounds in need of spending". Or at least, it's probably safe to assume that Knighty wrote this PR piece, since it inevitably goes on for several paragraphs in needless defense of its UI.

 Included with the press release was this work in progress screenshot of Fimfiction after the transaction is complete, featuring "new and improved targeted advertising, along with integration for Poundland's upcoming unified account system which will allow users to easily make purchases without leaving the page". It also made a particular point of bragging about its patented "Poundland Picks™" system, which suggests stories based off of the visitor's previous Poundland purchases and claims to have a 98% satisfaction guarantee. We're predicting that this will probably scare off the few remaining /mlp/ anons that still visit for the Sweetie Belle X Dean Hardscrabble crossover shipfics, but according to a recent Tumblr post Knighty doesn't like /mlp/ anymore after that plushie theft incident so he could really care less.

 As to how any of this will benefit Poundland, let's just say that despite drowning in shekels they're more desperate for customers than Final Draft in 2017 as a homeless male stripper and leave it at that.

 One could easily debate as to whether or not any of this will actually benefit the average Fimfiction user aside from bombarding them with even more advertisements, but will certainly help line the pockets of Graeme Pollard (not to mention Poundland) to help fund his upcoming marriage with fellow londoneer Phillip Vieira, a fellow web developer well known for designing a preteen dating service by the name of Cloudsdale.

Horse News does not advocate commercializing the pony community, so we'd greatly appreciate it if you bought one of our #HorseFamous shirts at our online shop.