After reading the NY times article I would guess only a few hundred. Here is why:


From the article:
"Clay declined to say how many paying members the site did attract, but he speculated that the number was a disappointment to Prince."

Then later Clay says:

"As for the unauthorized credit card charges, Clay said that he didn’t realize that their billing service had activated the automatic renewals. When he and his team saw the charges adding up -– and heard from irate members — they halted the process. He said “a few hundred” members had to be refunded."

A few hundred members? Wouldn't automatic charges be for all members as I would guess all members were automatically charged? Was there any other members not automatically charged?

A few hundred....if that's the case no wonder why Prince was pissed off. I am sure he blamed Clay and his people when in reality it was his fault. I suppose the new person building the website will be a bodyguard.

Prince you made your bed, now sleep in it.

I wasn't automatically charged.

i was a member. and i got my tshirt and tickets to the paisley park show. i was disappointed with the lack of new stuff and videos etc. but never had payment issues and wasn't charged for the second year. so i guess i don't have too many complaints. but i do feel bad for everyone that was affected by the bullshit.

sounds like everything was way disorganized with the whole thing, which could have been avoided had there been proper communication between prince/his people and the web developers.

i was a member from day 1. got my t-shirt. was not re-charged for year 2. downloaded all 3 albums. i also now have multiple performances i never had before (sacrifice of victor, montreaux, lenos,) plus the other tracks that were released.

was it worth $77? probably not. but i don't feel violated either.

Disappointment to Prince?


He gets a taste of how his fans have felt for YEARS.

I signed up but was not re-charged.

Sdldawn said:

That just shows the enormous irrationality of a lot of his fans. I would never be a fan of someone who constantly disappoints me. That's just simple common sense.

rwn said:

give me a break. Prince is almost at a comic timing with his over produced shit and horrible business decisions. You honestly think some of his fans truly are hurt? This is humor at this point.
[Edited 4/4/10 14:19pm]

I was a member.

They sent me my Tshirt BUT..... the darn shirt is a little kids size so they sent me the wrong size.

According to Prince: too few.

That is why he lost interest, according to mr Clay.

udo said:

Whatever BS they want to use

luv4u said:

If you think the excuse is bullshit (why do the same as hiding the beer in a paper bag?) what better excuse did we find that is backed by some interview or remark from an ex-involved person?

I'm wondering what a disappointment to Prince would even be?



100,000? 250,00? perhaps less? Who knows.
I would imagine it was probably aroudn 25,000 to 50,000 signups. $77 during a recession and given his past performance would indicate a low number, right?




Either way, lotusflow3r felt like something created in the late 90's when flash technology was just becoming all the rage, and websites were overdoing it with flash animation. It had a lot of dated 'wow' factor to it. But no real substance.


None of the menus were standard. It wasn't exactly easy to navigate. Hell, it even asked a riddle before you logged in. What kind of fool does that when he's trying to recruit clients?


Also, if your brand doesn't catch on right away, the trick is to keep promoting it, keep releasing updates, and 'grow' your brand. Think of what Apple did since the introduction of the first iMac and iPod---Prince seems incapable of starting something and seeing it through...allowing it to grow and become its own recruiting device. About the only thing he's been able to develop and grow is his musical ability---but that doesn't sell CDs.

[Edited 4/21/10 16:43pm]

I was a member. Didn't get a t-shirt, or tickets. Everybody that I knew who DIDN"T have membership had all the songs and lyrics *exclusive* to members, BEFORE me.
The only light at the end of the tunnel is that I was not automatically charged. I know I shouldn't be shocked that ANOTHER web site had died a quick and painful death, but I am

pruffin said:

No t-shirt, no love, I feel you....

i signed up on day one, got my tshirt within two months and downloaded the three lotusflow3r albums, watched the videos put up although couldnt store them. wondered why alphabet street and others looked like youtube rips!? but yes, not worth $77 but i love my tshirt and i wear it alot. and listen to the two lotusflower mplsound discs very frequently, bria's album not so much but still listen to probably once a month. so much promise. gutted he never released discojellyfish as an mp3 though, that was the shit. loved it. got auto-charged but money was back in my account within 24/48 hours so no real harm done there. lotusflow3r gave two very solid prince albums, a nice cd by bria and a tshirt that is lovely quality. not worth the $77 pricetag, had it been $40ish that would have been perfect. I'm writing from England so i would translate that roughly to £32, the tshirt probably being worth £20, the mp3s maybe £12ish? lotusflow3r.com should have put me off giving prince money upfront, but it delivered me 3 discs of music and a nice tshirt, some nice videos although they are no longer available to me and had i been in america some preferred seating. had i been able to attend one of those shows, i would have paid double the $77 for that alone, so i guess location came in to whether or not it was value money. should prince open a new web venture charging $77, money is tight but i would do my best to find it, because prince makes me happy, and sometimes he gets it very very right (npgmc) and sometimes he misses the target but when he gets it right, it's worth far more than $77.

I was a member!



But then I realized all the video content he had up there I already had ripped from youtube and dailymotion and I was sad...

[img][/img]

MajesticOne89 said:

Lotusflower before and after...

Someone posted the traffic stats for the site from the first month, and being very generous with assuming how many of the visitors were unique, it looked like Lotu$flower.com had about 5,000 members.

If I recall correctly, I'd figured that Prince grossed around $400K from what we could see was the traffic on the site.

We don't know how much money it cost to develop the site, but someone did find the globe application and you could buy it for about $90.

Not me and i'm glad ya'll got ripped off big time!

RodeoSchro said:

I may not know what it did cost. However, I've been designing/developing websites and pretty much "living" on the internet since 2002 and based strictly on what it was and what it did...I've got a damn good estimate!

Prince STILL made out like a bandit and he STILL unmistakably, flat out, couldn't make it any clearer...didn't appreciate that!

HELLO!!!!!