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Printable muleFunk said: Lotus was doomed from jump.
On one hand you have Prince who we all know will drop any project for what is the "new" thing that pops up. On the other hand you have a fanbase that is spoiled and is not satisfied with anything he does. In all of the comments that have been made no mention has been made of this fact.We are all pissed at the lack of output that this site contained but how many people have bitched about the bootlegs that were made off the material from not only this site but the NPGMC site as well. I spent $100 for that site got all types of music, tickets, etc. only to see some of that material sold on ebay. Yes Prince was/is out of touch with the "fans" but what about the same fan that goes and buys bootlegged material and complains that they already have "that" material. If you were Prince would you release Roadhouse Garden online only to see it on ebay the next week? Prince needs to take responsibility for his actions and so do we. Interesting point. | |
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MacDaddy said: NeoGeo24bit said: Here's some free business advice for Prince.
Open an official Twitter account so you can update fans on new music releases, concerts, or whatever is on your mind. Ask prince.org to post the link for Prince's official Twitter account on the main page. In three months Prince will have 200,000+ followers. Tell those followers when a new album is being released. The album will go top 5, probably number one. Everyone is happy. That's a nice idea, but it will not appeal to Prince, I think. Twitter is mainly used by celebs as a way to get 'closer to fans'. That's probably the last thing he wants. Prince will never, I repeat never, start a Twitter account. It's too mainstream, that's why he shut down the Myspace account. He likes to do things his own unique way, that's never going to change so just Letitgo. | |
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murphdrag said: Prince will never, I repeat never, start a Twitter account. It's too mainstream, that's why he shut down the Myspace account. He likes to do things his own unique way, that's never going to change so just Letitgo.
I am not saying that I'd like him to twitter, but at least time has shown that his ways of doing business aren't always the best ways. (e.g.: lotusflow3r.com, the irish gig, npgmc, crystall ball, etc, yada yada yadda) Pills and thrills and daffodils will kill... If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry. | |
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murphdrag said: MacDaddy said: That's a nice idea, but it will not appeal to Prince, I think. Twitter is mainly used by celebs as a way to get 'closer to fans'. That's probably the last thing he wants. Prince will never, I repeat never, start a Twitter account. It's too mainstream, that's why he shut down the Myspace account. He likes to do things his own unique way, that's never going to change so just Letitgo. a website isn't mainstream? and the only unique thing about that last one is that you had to pay for it. and got nothing. | |
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Mars23 said: agathos said: whats the problem with lotusflow3r?
I subscribed, got 3 wonderful albums, 1 t-shirt, a lot of other material, old videos, some live shots, etc. It was a cool experience. If Prince does such a site with same amount of stuff again: I will subscribe... I really dont understand all the bashing... the second charge cant be the problem... some technician made a mistake, so what? Here's one of the problems: Ultimately, the site, which is set to debut before the Target street date, will have to thrive apart from those first three albums. Clay says future plans for Lotus flow3r.com include a hybrid documentary-music video. But the deal-sealer, he concedes, is the potential for[b] streaming live, VIP-only concerts from Prince's Los Angeles mansion.[/b] "There could be a live chat going on with members watching a concert, and Prince could actually play requests," Clay says. He also claims a colleague has organized 10 albums of old Prince music never released in any form. Should there exist an all-tuba record Prince recorded half out of his mind back in 1988, now he's got a place to let it toot—if only he can commit to digitizing all his diamonds and pearls.
Which part of which galaxy did you find those in? So I wonder. He says "the potential for" and "there could be..." nothing concrete in that. Were these things confirmed or just ideas spoken about and nothing concluded before the whole thing began or did he just say what he "could do/provide?" Then then when LF was launched, the buffering issues were bad, that signals never being able to get the real ideas off the ground anyway. Added to that, low membership figures and the office politics began, souring the relationship beyond repair. "Free URself, B the best that U can B, 3rd Apartment from the Sun, nothing left to fear" Prince Rogers Nelson - Forever in my Life - | |
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If the website had been promoted just for the 3CD set and not the "entirely new galaxy" false advertising I would have never signed up.
I heard about all the problems with NPGMC and was wary but at least that site had allot more content. Clay can't be held entirely responsible - if he's not getting the content and judging by the article contacting Prince and being ignored what is supposed to do? Obviously when Prince didn't get the numbers to recoup the $$ he paid out for the site then, like most of his other projects over the years, he simply lost interest and didn't bother. I for one am not going to sign up for anything like this again. There's an old saying Prince: "Once bitten, twice shy."  | |
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murphdrag said: MacDaddy said: That's a nice idea, but it will not appeal to Prince, I think. Twitter is mainly used by celebs as a way to get 'closer to fans'. That's probably the last thing he wants. Prince will never, I repeat never, start a Twitter account. It's too mainstream, that's why he shut down the Myspace account. He likes to do things his own unique way, that's never going to change so just Letitgo. Dont be so sure. | |
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I want everybody to pay attention to this statement.
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.
Am I correct in saying that the credit card charges started this whole round of shit outside of the lack of new content??? |
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Interesting that Clay didn't have a written contract forbidding him from speaking about working with Prince. I wonder if Anthony Malzone will also speak about the website's woes.
I think lotusflow3r.com would've had less disappointing sign-up numbers if 2 things were in place: 1 - a more welcoming splash page that at least described that lotusflow3r.com was the official Prince website (Clay should've never allowed that bleak and cryptic splash page 2 go up) 2 - a more reasonable price like $31.21 (a fairer price IMHO when I reflect on how little we members actually got on the site). I'm still hoping we get lotusflow3r.com 2.0 instead of another black-out period. "purplelectricity whenever our bodies touch" |
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muleFunk said: I want everybody to pay attention to this statement.
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.
Am I correct in saying that the credit card charges started this whole round of shit outside of the lack of new content??? No. For the site's members it was just the icing on the cake after 365 days of no joy but a lot of anger, frustration and feelings of being ripped off. For Prince the whole thing was over already MUCH earlier, obviously. Actually, after reading that report, i don't care anymore for that charging thing, and now i even belive it actually was a stupid mistake, but one which may happen, that's life. They seem to have refunded everyone in like 24 hours which i have to be honest about was really OK, but the whole story is so much bigger than that... | |
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lotusflower said: GetAwayFromMe said: The best part for me is that he was disappointed with the number of members.   do we have any idea on how many members lotusflow3r had? I really would like to know  I say the same, all the speculation about low membership is just that SPECULATION! I simply believe Prince got fed up with Clay period. Lemme | |
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RodeoSchro said: Hey, the dude sent Prince so many emails asking for new content that Prince actually called him up said said to stop.
What else do you think Clay could have done? So Clay said...where is the proof he sent so many emails? Lemme | |
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Get a Life,when are you all going to realize, Prince has lost the plot,the signs have been there for a long time.
And I was one of his most loyal fans,in the 80's and 90's no one could touch him and he was all about the fans,not anymore though. Now its me,me,me,Prince has changed dramatically and he is left with a few die hard fans who no matter what will never change their opinion of him,and thats fine but does Prince care about you....?? | |
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FunkyDissCo said: muleFunk said: I want everybody to pay attention to this statement.
Am I correct in saying that the credit card charges started this whole round of shit outside of the lack of new content??? No. For the site's members it was just the icing on the cake after 365 days of no joy but a lot of anger, frustration and feelings of being ripped off. For Prince the whole thing was over already MUCH earlier, obviously. Actually, after reading that report, i don't care anymore for that charging thing, and now i even belive it actually was a stupid mistake, but one which may happen, that's life. They seem to have refunded everyone in like 24 hours which i have to be honest about was really OK, but the whole story is so much bigger than that... I was a site member who never felt the anger that many are expressing here in regards to this. I know that I am an exception to the rule. The true blame for the problems were pointed out in the article and he accepted and when he knew his cred was on the line he jumps up and gives a statement to the media. |
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colum said: Get a Life,when are you all going to realize, Prince has lost the plot,the signs have been there for a long time.
And I was one of his most loyal fans,in the 80's and 90's no one could touch him and he was all about the fans,not anymore though. Now its me,me,me,Prince has changed dramatically and he is left with a few die hard fans who no matter what will never change their opinion of him,and thats fine but does Prince care about you....?? Why should he care about you? This is a bidness. He is there to make money off you. |
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4bjb said: lotusflower said: do we have any idea on how many members lotusflow3r had? I really would like to know I say the same, all the speculation about low membership is just that SPECULATION! I simply believe Prince got fed up with Clay period. Even if he did get fed up with Clay, how does that justify screwing over the members of the site? He could have let Clay go at any time if he wasn't pleased with Clay's work. It was Prince's site. It had Prince's name and image on it. Clay did a terrible job in designing the site, but the ultimate blame lies with Prince. | |
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The web developer had NOTHING to do with the lack of content - NOTHING.
If the website was sluggish or poorly designed, that's him - but the content or lack thereof was under Prince's control. It's not like Clay was sitting all those referenced (promised?) albums and chose not to post them on the site. Without new content to upload, the site was a dud. |
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laurarichardson said: Efan said: I found this part in particular very infuriating. It shows exactly how little Prince regards his fans. ----- Dude was not a fan. He was an employee. I hope everyone takes note of this comment. You're so not getting it. Deliberately, no doubt. © Bart Van Hemelen
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IstenSzek said: instead we get mindgames, and bear the brunt of his disappointment in
seeing yet another membership drive halt at 25,000. I betcha it was nowhere near that number. © Bart Van Hemelen
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80spfantwp said: If we assume the points raised in the article are true then two points are glaringly obvious to me where blame lies:
1) Clay was dismissed about a MONTH ago - plently of time to have ensured that no automatic renewals were activated to a site which clay KNEW was closing; albeit even temporarily. He may have been dismissed only a month ago, but it was clear to him that the site was dead in the water immediately after the launch. I don't get why he didn't just tell the truth back then, anonymously. I'd have ratted out Prince ages ago: I'd made damn sure I wasn't gonna be the one who got to sit through all the crap. © Bart Van Hemelen
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Fenwick said: I am a huge supporter of Prince/any musician's output and absolutely hate the download/file share market today that skirts artists getting paid.
And the only reason that exists is because record companies and the like thought they could halt it via litigation. Now we're 10+ years later, content companies are STILL occupied with preventing people to use their digital media the way they want to, and Apple -- a COMPUTER COMPANY -- has cornered the market on digital music. Idiots, the lot of them. © Bart Van Hemelen
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muleFunk said: The true blame for the problems were pointed out in the article and he accepted and when he knew his cred was on the line he jumps up and gives a statement to the media. Not sure if i got you right, but who do you mean? The blame was pointed out, yes, it's 95% Prince's fault, right. Who "accepted" what, though? You mean the web guy's cred was on the line? And in turn, do you blame him now for speaking about how helpless he must've been to run a site for somebody who doesn't want that very site anymore? | |
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muleFunk said: Lotus was doomed from jump.
On one hand you have Prince who we all know will drop any project for what is the "new" thing that pops up. On the other hand you have a fanbase that is spoiled and is not satisfied with anything he does. It was a shitty site. Nothing to do with us being spoiled. muleFunk said: In all of the comments that have been made no mention has been made of this fact.We are all pissed at the lack of output that this site contained but how many people have bitched about the bootlegs that were made off the material from not only this site but the NPGMC site as well.
Wanna know why there were bootlegs? Because they PROVIDED WHAT PRINCE WASN'T GIVING. Simple as that. Oh, and congrats on making up yet another ridiculous reason to not blame this on Prince. It's never him, it's always us: we're spoiled, we download/buy bootlegs... muleFunk said: I spent $100 for NPGMC and got all types of music, tickets, etc. only to see some of that material sold on ebay.
So? Since when is that YOUR problem? muleFunk said: Yes Prince was/is out of touch with the "fans" but what about the same fan that goes and buys bootlegged material and complains that they already have "that" material.
Yeah, that was the main complaint about LF.  Got some more made-up reasons?
muleFunk said: If you were Prince would you release Roadhouse Garden online only to see it on ebay the next week?
I'd think to myself: "why didn't I think of that?" and stop making the same mistake again. © Bart Van Hemelen
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4bjb said: RodeoSchro said: Hey, the dude sent Prince so many emails asking for new content that Prince actually called him up said said to stop.
What else do you think Clay could have done? So Clay said...where is the proof he sent so many emails? In Prince's inbox and Clay's outbox, I'd imagine. You really expect the guy to open up his email to you because you're too blindlly in love with Prince to believe he can do no wrong? After 15 years of being a Prince fan on the Internet, I often think I've become very jaded as to the cuckoo-ass shit fams will say in his defense. And then something like this happens and they come out of the wordwork with their convoluted, contorted logic-pretzels to rationalize Prince's very poor treatment of his fans and his own legacy. It's almost refreshing. It almost warms the cockles of my heart and reminds me of a much more innocent era for us all, before he removed the middle man and we had the constant "pleasure" of dealing with his creative and financial schizophrenia in a close-up, very personal way. | |
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muleFunk said: colum said: Get a Life,when are you all going to realize, Prince has lost the plot,the signs have been there for a long time.
And I was one of his most loyal fans,in the 80's and 90's no one could touch him and he was all about the fans,not anymore though. Now its me,me,me,Prince has changed dramatically and he is left with a few die hard fans who no matter what will never change their opinion of him,and thats fine but does Prince care about you....?? Why should he care about you? This is a bidness. He is there to make money off you. which clearly backfired. there are going to be less and less people willing to sign up for these things, sight-unseen each time he does it. that's just bad bidness and at some point drastically affects the bottom line. | |
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BartVanHemelen said: muleFunk said: Lotus was doomed from jump.
On one hand you have Prince who we all know will drop any project for what is the "new" thing that pops up. On the other hand you have a fanbase that is spoiled and is not satisfied with anything he does. It was a shitty site. Nothing to do with us being spoiled. Yeah, that was the main complaint about LF. Got some more made-up reasons?
muleFunk said: If you were Prince would you release Roadhouse Garden online only to see it on ebay the next week?
I'd think to myself: "why didn't I think of that?" and stop making the same mistake again. Bart !
It was doomed because mofos like you would have spit the same bullshit regardless of how well or in this case how fucked up it was. I don't want to defend Prince because I agree with the board that he should have done more than what he did. BUT the bottomline is that the majority of people on this site just want to BITCH about anything and PRINCE'S stupid ass gives you the outlet. |
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Bart I still love you though because at least I know where you stand on the issues. |
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When will Prince realize that we don't need (or even want, for that matter) a website with flashy graphics, a virtual "world", or any sort of exclusivity.
That visual candy is fun for the first few visits but the real appeal is the content. Another downside to all those visuals is that they're very hard to update routinely, meaning we're stuck with the same graphics for a year. Open the site to the general public, offer daily or weekly updates from Prince himself (even if they're just What's New or Quote Of The Week), and open up a true pay-per-project download store featuring Lossless music and HD video. The lack of a store - in any form - on the LotusFlow3r website was an egregious mistake. |
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muleFunk said: It was doomed because mofos like you would have spit the same bullshit regardless of how well or in this case how fucked up it was.
And you just keep making shit up. © Bart Van Hemelen
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FunkyDissCo said: muleFunk said: The true blame for the problems were pointed out in the article and he accepted and when he knew his cred was on the line he jumps up and gives a statement to the media. Not sure if i got you right, but who do you mean? The blame was pointed out, yes, it's 95% Prince's fault, right. Who "accepted" what, though? You mean the web guy's cred was on the line? And in turn, do you blame him now for speaking about how helpless he must've been to run a site for somebody who doesn't want that very site anymore? I think it was more 75% because we don't really know what the Hell occured here. The guy knew it was not going to be a year 2 of this site. Orgers started SEVERAL months ago complaining and stopping service just in case but nothing was done until people were charged. This was not Prince's fault it was his fault. So to save his reputation he gives a interview to explain what happened. I suppose that the web guy was caught in no man's land because the communication broke down ,but we don't know because we have not heard Prince's side yet. We know that Prince himself is not doing these day to day operations by himself.He should have a staff or a legal team/PR people or something monitoring situations like this. If he doesn't he's more messed up than I thought. Prince should have maintained his credibility by issuing an explanation but he didn't and that's why we are here. |
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