John J. Hlavaty ([email protected])
Thu, 06 Aug 1998 17:25:15 -0400
!!!!
"Ciao John" notes that Fiducia's (a newbie with her
first post!) post wasn't exactly "short" either.
"Ciao John" sulks (how dare a newbie say this?!?!).
"Ciao John" cries.
"Ciao John" demands vengeance!
"Ciao John" plots evil demise of said newbie! >:-)
"Ciao John" relents.
"Ciao John" gets over it.
"Ciao John" forgives newbie.
"Ciao John" makes mental note to ignore Fiducia in the
future, er, that is,
"Ciao John" welcomes Fiducia to WIRE.
and most importantly....
"Ciao John" realizes he has to write about something
else if he's going to meet his "10K per post" quota. :-D
With that in mind:
Chuck Anderson ([email protected]) on behalf of "u2shoppingmall" wrote:
> He then got angry when we checked out his reputation and found that
> Interference has a less than stellar rep with the U2 camp.
Interference has a bad rep for several reasons. First they
promoted themselves as some omnipotent source of U2 knowledge,
when in fact their web page was rather boring. When some of us on
WIRE viewed it and weren't impressed, the Interference people then
FLAMED the WIRE person to a crisp! One does not ask for feedback
only to tear people apart when said feedback is not favorable.
I also partially credit Interference for some of the early
flaws in Island's/U2's marketing of "POP". Interference uploaded
the FULL version of "Discotheque" on their web site, without
permission, before it was released. Since the
anticipation for a new U2 single was high, radio stations
started downloading the song and playing it. Martin's .wav
file of "Discotheque" was perhaps 30 seconds long but Island soon
stopped him from making it available. Still, Martin's snippet
turned out to be some of the best promotion U2 received and it
was for free! The sample was just long enough to give people
a "taste" of new U2, but not long enough to reveal the whole song.
In contrast, by Interference uploading the whole song before
it was to be released, Island/Polygram and U2 had to
shift their strategies. The record label was forced to release
the song to radio early (to prevent future "free" downloads).
This cascaded into a series of other rushed events.
Note that there was a fairly large gap between the time
"Discotheque" came out and when "Staring at the Sun" was released.
This huge delay between the songs may have hurt the sales of
"POP" in the U.S. Fans who heard "Discotheque" and weren't
happy, immediately tuned out U2. Had "Staring at the Sun"
been ready for quick release after "Discotheque", more fans
may have been willing to buy "POP" and stick with U2.
Note that back in 1991, when U2 released "The Fly" first,
"Mysterious Ways" was released a few short weeks later (not
the near 2 months between "Discotheque and "Staring...").
"One" was available a short time later. Any fan who disliked
"The Fly" was then immediately bombarded with "Mysterious
Ways" and then "One". The timing was perfect and this kept
"Achtung Baby's" sales going strong - remaining in the
top 15 for almost 7 months! In contrast, "POP" was only
in the top 15 for a short 2 months. The long gap between
single releases may have hurt. And this gap was partially
caused by Interference's early and unplanned release of
"Discotheque".
Obviously there are TONS of other reasons for why "POP"
failed to have "super" sales in the U.S., but
I feel Interference's own greed (to be the first to have
this song on their site) hurt more than helped.
With the double whammy of arrogance and betrayal, not
to mention downright rudeness and the fact that their web site
fails to provide any new information, is it any wonder why Interference
is not favored with U2 fans?
So, if you want your "u2shoppingmall" site to succeed,
I recommend that you learn from Interference's mistakes.
> Some people still saw the need to rail on us for doing so. You cannot
> please everyone I guess! I think it was more of an invitation to a party, or
> event, not a "spam" as in the conventional sense
I think Prarit said it perfectly. You are promoting
and should admit to doing so. Calling it a "party" or whatever
other euphemism you can think of is belittling the intelligence
of U2 fans. There's nothing wrong with promoting. Many of
us have advertised our web sites or items for sale on WIRE.
The difference is we acknowledge the promotion. It is also
important to keep the promotion in check. Sending all of us
e-mails on your site may have been too much.
I have found that after nearly 4 years of playing on WIRE
and other on-line U2 services, that it's best to be as
honest and straight-forward with U2 fans as possible.
We simply have low tolerance for any sort of deception.
Combine this with the fact that your site is ultimately geared
towards sales (either of U2 items or your magazine) and
you are hitting U2 fans at their weakest points: their
wallets and their morality. Even U2 has received flack from
their fans regarding money (high ticket prices, releasing of numerous
versions of one single, etc.) or morality (the perception that
U2 has "sold out" or no longer retains their past beliefs).
So if die-hard fans are willing to attack U2 on these issues,
don't expect them to be any kinder to you. Just accept this
and move on. I like your website and I hope you continue to
expand upon it in the future. Just be cognizant of how
demanding U2 fans are. Just because we love U2, doesn't
mean we can't be fastidious.
> In the past several months he has managed to put up a bogus Mofo
> single
While it's true, this single is not real, I will state that Peter
Hanning,
the person who made these remixes, is a wonderful guy and a great
U2 fan. I enjoyed his remixes quite a bit and recommend them.
The remix for "Mothers of the Disappeared" is especially interesting
as it contains a very different version of Bono singing this
song. I also like the idea that Interference is at least giving
"something"
away with no need to register or sign a book or do anything else.
So if you expect your "shoppingmall" idea to thrive, keep this
in mind.
Just some helpful hints...
Is this 10K yet? Good. I don't want to dissapoint Fiducia. ;-D
Ciao,
John
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Thu Aug 06 1998 - 14:23:18 PDT