Now that Prince gota taste of being back in the mainstream with last years Musicology and back signing with major record labels as if he no longer has the anti record company anti mainstream view point,Do u think NPGMC is still relevent? .....My opinion og NPGMC was that it born from Prince's disapointments record companys & poor album sales ,so 4 a minute its like he gave up and created a site jus 4 the diehards but now it seems like he dont care about since he really dont need it anymore,what yaw think ? did u hear the new single good lawd!

of course it's still relevant. it's his official web site and the man has fans.

i do think NPGMC should take a cue from bowienet and offer news items on its front page, and up the amount of free content it offers "casual" fans. sweetening the pot by (at least) offering free updates on what prince is up to might tantalize more people to plunk down twennyfive bucks for videos/chat/forum/etc.

as it is, it's kind of an unwelcoming experience for the uninitiated. you don't feel any kind of rapport welcoming you to join the club. and at times like this where it seems like 'exclusivity' doesn't lie within NPGMC, they really need to be capitalizing on the concept of fan community to keep membership moving forward.

just my

Anxiety said:

I belong to BowieNet and I am thoroughly unimpressed. I actually think NPGMC is better. Of course it is stil relevant. He just released SST on it. It is going to have the video today. You can still get other music and merchandise on it as well. Even the forums from which I have been banned are useful to some fans.

sonofblade said:

as a mouthpiece for bowie himself to communicate with fans as originally intended, bowienet has indeed jumped the shark. but they have an EXCELLENT front page with all the latest info, and TotalBlamBlam still usually manages to (go figure) scoop other sources with his news items.

there's no reason NPGMC can't do something like this, even when prince is being stingy with new information...people go to official fan sites for the latest info. what good is basic info doing locked up behind a $25 membership fee?

They could certainly improve when it comes to new info.

There's a fairly long thread over there now ("With all due respect") noting that it seems like new info. was released to the press before it appeared on the NPGMC. I'm kinda impressed that the thread wasn't deleted, shows some tolerance for a little constructive criticism.

Heck even if the new agreement with Universal prevents them from pre-publishing concrete info. about upcoming releases, they could at least release this info. concurrently.

Universaluv said:

Excellent points. The only time I go to the official site is to download new music as it comes or buy tickets when he's touring. NPGMC could take a little time to make the site more inviting via news info like the press conferences and such. Prince should also make those AHdio shows available for download again. And make some new ones too. A new audio show per month similar to what he did before would be cool, and maybe mix it up with an audio show featuring a member of the NPG as well. And let's face it. Prince should do some things that other fansites do...like the org's "Today in Prince history" segment. He could do that with a little calendar for the month and put an image/pic of himself, the NPG, or some artwork that catches his eye, or maybe some work of people who've done artwork for his CDs.