Linkin Park fans, when you get up in the morning, what’s the first thing you do? Exactly! You check for any Linkin Park related news that you might have missed during the night. So, if you’re still looking for a place where you can do this, the Linkin Park Times is the right one! There you can find all news, a media center, etc. in newspaper style. It is also the only (big) fansite based in Asia. So of course the LPT will also be featured in our “Behind the Scenes”-Interview Series with its admin Jasparina, who’s honestly one of the nicest people I’ve met in the LP fan community, answering a few questions.

LPFC: When was the Linkin Park Times founded? Can you briefly describe the process?

Jasparina: LP Times went online in October 2003.I had wanted to create my own Linkin Park fan site earlier but was too busy with the Lord of the Rings trilogy at the time (I have a fansite dedicated to one of the actors [:-)] ) The plan was to start creating my own LP site after The Return of the King, which was released in December so I was thinking maybe early 2004 but then Linkin Park announced that they were going to play in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on October 15th and it was their first and only South-East Asian stopover in the Meteora Asian Tour, I knew then that they will come to Singapore on their next tour. Even though it’s not Singapore, I was so excited that I just had to create my LP site ASAP!

LPFC: What was the main reason for starting the site?

Jasparina: The reason why I had to quickly create and launch LP Times was because there was no representative from Asia at that time. I felt that I could contribute. Having covered the Asian press junkets, promos and premieres for LOTR, I felt that whatever resources I have I could use it to cover Linkin Park’s concert in Malaysia and future concert in Asia and share it with the fans in the US. When the band toured the South-East Asian countries in 2004 I was able to provide news, photos and videos from our shore and share it with the world. Some of my LOTR friends who are not LP fans even helped grab videos from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand and Japan for me. I’m so happy to see that since then we have at least one fan site from Asian countries and I’m so proud of them all!

LPFC: What were your personal highlights in the history of the LPTimes so far and were there moments when it was hard to maintain the site?

Jasparina: Every chance that I got to work with Linkin Park and LPU are my personal highlights like when Brad asked to promote the download to donate widget, having the LPA/LPL/LPT LPU Giveaways and the Linkin Park Featuring You Fansite Edition contest on the site.

Getting a shout out or a mention from Mike Shinoda is always an honour and makes me very happy.

The first time I was in touch with the LP staff was when the band toured South-East Asia, Mike posted a message on the LP forum asking the fans to post LP videos or TV interviews from other countries. I managed to get some video clips of the band’s interviews and appearances on Asian TV, there was no Youtube at the time so I shared the videos via email. I wanted the band to see them so I contacted Kyle, LP.com’s chat admin. I sent him the download links but the staff wasn’t able to download them because the links would expire after a few days so Kyle asked me to burn it on a CD and mail it to them. A few weeks later, Kyle said that they’ve received the CD and have forwarded it to the band. I have no idea what they did to the CD but it doesn’t matter, I’m just happy that I can do something for them.

Moments when it was hard to maintain the site? only when I’m sick :-). I’m running the site alone and when life takes over, I feel guilty for not being able to maintain and keep it up to date. The time difference can also be difficult sometimes, it’s always fun to be in the middle of things when there’s an event happening on the other side of the globe but to do that will mean no sleep so I try to participate whenever I can.

LPFC: The way you present the news in a newspaper style is pretty unique and I love how you combine the thorough and detailed news posts with a huge media archive. Why did you choose this form of presentation and what do you personally see as the strengths of your site?

Jasparina: I’ve always wanted the site to be like a newspaper style, I did consider forum style but that would take alot of time and energy to monitor, besides, I have no experience running a forum. When the idea of having my own LP site first came to my mind I already decided that I want to focus on two things, photos and videos, that’s what interest me the most. I think the media section is the strength of LPT, although I wasn’t able to provide for the most part of 2011 due to health issues and life taking over, I think I’ve done a pretty good job 🙂

LPFC: Do you think that there are features of the site that many fans seem to overlook? If yes, can you briefly describe those features?

Jasparina: I don’t think there’s anything on LPT that fans have overlooked, the site is not that big and don’t have many features, there are the photo gallery and the media section, two features that I focus on and of course the news archives.

LPFC: What have you planned for Linkin Park Times in the future? Do you want to add, change or improve something?

Jasparina: There’s nothing I want to add but I hope to revamp the media page. A lot of the files are on Megaupload which we know is no longer online. I do have most of the files on my hard drive so if I have the time I will re-upload the files again somewhere and replace the broken links. Uploading process is time consuming so it may take some time.

Next year LP Times will be 10 years old, I can’t believe it’s been that long, I will try my best to keep it running for as long as I can.

Which should be forever! Check out the Linkin Park Times and thanks to jasparina for the great interview!

Read the interview with Derek from LPA
Read the interview with Thomas from BlackCheser.de
Read the interview with Jen from LinkinLady

Upcoming interviews: Linkin Park Live, Linkin Park Revolution, Mike Shinoda Clan and Chester Bennington Network

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