Kolkata Knight Riders, the Shah Rukh Khan owned Indian Premier League cricket team, has launched its website, albeit in demo mode. The current website, according to reliable sources, is for reference purposes only and there is a full fledged site in the works. The site claims 8810 registered fans (was 8670 last night) so far.

I decided to check out what other clubs have made: Chennaisuperkings.com, DelhiDaredevils.com, Royalchallengers.com (Bangalore) and Mumbaiindians.com. Royal Challengers is pretty much completely broken, you can register alphabets for numbers and it will still thank you on clicking the submit button. Mumbaiindians.com appears to have been parked by this man (Not official site disclaimer hidden at the bottom of the page).Hopefully all of them are just using basic templates as placeholders before the actual products are out.

Nikhil adds: The sites are not yet fully operational, but what caught my eye was that all the clubs are focusing on building a fan base: passionate rivalries, of the kind we witness during derby matches in football, will be critical to the success of the IPL and the teams. Hence, at least three of the sites mentioned above - for Chennaisuperkings, DelhiDaredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders - have a war-like theme to them. However, I do feel that the over-emphasis on look and feel, and the use of flash takes away from the usability of the site. Fans want more than just a good looking, cool site - they want the inside scoop, the gossip, the interviews, videos, wallpapers, games, among other things. Compare any of these sites to the Manchester United or Arsenal sites, and you’ll notice a marked difference. However, those are clubs with an existing fan-base; these clubs are still trying to create theirs. I’d written earlier about fandom and types of fans here.