The Future of ThePolice.com revealed

[TheEqualizer]

I'm sure most of us got this email, but just in case:

QUOTE

What's in store for ThePolice.com?

We know that many of you have been wondering what will happen to ThePolice.com now that the band has completed their hugely successful reunion tour and once again gone their separate ways. We are pleased to tell you that ThePolice.com will remain online as the band's official free-to-access web presence. We have decided to leave the Community area online and we will be making this whole area free for anyone who wishes to join and post including the virtual ticket material. There will be no further membership charges to access the site and no termination date imposed to existing memberships. In addition, for the next three months we'll pick three new members who have subscribed in the previous month at random and each will win a copy of the Police.com fan club DVD.

END QUOTE

That place has been D-E-A-D lately.

[TOWOS]

Glad I never joined - heh heh.

[giovanni]

Could it mean something???

[stevel]

Giovanni mate exactly my first hope/thought

[smudge]

So, there is now a free 'official' Police website? How odd.

Forgive me for saying this here Giovanni, because it sounds ungracious to tpt.com; if there was anything 'new' about to happen, I think they would be asking people to pay money to stay 'subscribed'. Not knocking the people that have been administering the site, but in my limited experience as a 'free' member, it was a bit of a malfunctioning juggernaut, careering along the freeway.

This place, on the other hand, is more akin to a shifting and changing convoy of eco-freindly convertables, pottering through interesting twisty backroads, with a great view.

[sockii]

[quote="giovanni"]Could it mean something???[/quote]

Yep. As vespa would start to sing,

"Turn out the lights...the party is over..."

[HalcyonLisa]

I think it means that they closed the door and locked it - but they didnt put the burglar alarm on



Lisa

[Susan]

IF there ever were to be ANY reason to have any news about the band--I don't know, a one-time event or something we can't foresee, it would be better that they still have the site. But I don't think it means anything more than that.

Besides, wouldn't it suck if they let the domain registration go, and then you typed in thepolice.com and got one of those placeholder sites or, even crazier, a site related to actual police?

[njperry]

QUOTE
In addition, for the next three months we'll pick three new members who have subscribed in the previous month at random and each will win a copy of the Police.com fan club DVD.

END QUOTE

Did they have more than 3 new members in the last month? Who would pay that much money to join now? To get access to the members posts area and a discount at the store (but not on the large shipping charge)? Perhaps they were AIG people looking for a place to spend their bonus

[Susan]

[quote="njperry"]QUOTE
In addition, for the next three months we'll pick three new members who have subscribed in the previous month at random and each will win a copy of the Police.com fan club DVD.

END QUOTE

Did they have more than 3 new members in the last month? Who would pay that much money to join now? To get access to the members posts area and a discount at the store (but not on the large shipping charge)? Perhaps they were AIG people looking for a place to spend their bonus [/quote]

No, no, now you can join for free.
Although now that I read it again, it does seem like an inducement to join. Well, maybe they're just trying to sweeten the pot since they've taken the lid off.

[Laz]

...kinda sounds like if at any point in the future they make some announcement that they're going back to charging for membership, THAT could mean something...

Laz

[Charliearnoid]

Mama always said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all".

[DirtyMartini]

This is a pretty big no-brainer to me. I'm just surprised that they dragged the announcement out for so long.

Forums are cheap to run and great advertising tools. Even a dead band needs an online presence if it wants to sell its products -- and solo products. Without a forum, the site's just brochureware, but with a forum, you've got daily content being generated, and fans interacting and creating buzz for each other to feed off. (How many extra shows did people see this past tour that they wouldn't have had it not been for all the reports and excitement generated on the forums? How many future shows will people see that they might not have otherwise as a result of the same?)

The paid membership aspect of the fan club was nothing but a joke from stem to stern, but scrapping the forum would have only dissipated the advertising audience and turned TP.com into AndySummers.com (a site that mostly gets hit as the occasional mood strikes). They won't get activity like at the height of the tour, of course, but this way they bring in new members, lure back some old ones, and can advertise every compilation, guest appearance, and whatever to the casually interested and completists (and desperate-for-anythings) that won't pay to join a site like Sting.com or don't want to search for info on SC.net and AS.com.

It'd be nice to see them announce a Stewart project now and then -- but then, it'd be nice to see *cough* Stewart announce a Stewart project now and then.


ETA -- OT: I admit that I marvel at (and rag on) Stewart's egregious deficiency in self-promotion (and take pity on his publicist), but I also have to give some credit: over a year and a half, the single most effective buzz generator of the Police tour was the Disaster Gig post. For better or worse, it was spontaneous, organic, and (with maybe the exception of the Grammys/Whisky announcement, but I dunno) it reached exponentially more eyeballs than anything set up by the promoters. I gotta wonder how much more epic things could have gotten this go-round had there been less silence.

[plutonic]

[quote="DirtyMartini"]This is a pretty big no-brainer to me. I'm just surprised that they dragged the announcement out for so long.

Forums are cheap to run and great advertising tools. Even a dead band needs an online presence if it wants to sell its products -- and solo products. Without a forum, the site's just brochureware, but with a forum, you've got daily content being generated, and fans interacting and creating buzz for each other to feed off.[/quote]

Agreed.

[quote="giovanni"]Could it mean something???[/quote]

Also agreed.
It could.
Or not.

[tgycagel]

Interesting how the message on TP.com website omits the phrase "and once again gone their separate ways".

http://www.thepolice.com/news/news.php?uid=5862

Are we trying to read into this too much?