Hayley i-squad eteam

[lowlight]

Hey everyone they just launched an i-squad for Hayley 0- everyone on here should sign up to help promote PUR in the states! i-squad.com/decca/HayleyWestenra.html - just thought i'd let everyone know - thanx

[HWI]

lowlight,

Your post about Hayley's new i-Squad is interesting for a couple of reasons;

1) It appears to be a devious little pyramid selling group which, in all the messages around the web I have seen regarding it, misses out a vital piece of information. It is open to residents of the USA ONLY!

2) It turns it's back on the work done by all the fansites already out there around the world. Fansites which, in one case, has been running nearly THREE YEARS. The membership of these fansites is already international and a substantial number of these members are from the USA. So, is this an attempt to poach members?

3) The network out there has been built up over, as I said above, anything up to nearly three years. It is firmly established and has developed a relationship with it's visitors. The webmasters, managers and existing fans will not view this i-Squad with any particular favour due to their exclusion simply because they are not from the USA.

4) Finally, the i-Squad wants to use the facilities of these sites, and let us not forget the discussion groups and forums associated with them, to publicise itself. No doubt this is to promote themselves further up the search engine rankings. All this whilst still excluding them. That is cheeky in the least.

Frankly, I do not see this as a wise move and would strongly recommend an immediate rethink. I know that similar comments are made elsewhere, although not with supporting argument as above.

Do not get us wrong. We all are ready, willing and able to do all in our power to support and promote Hayley, which is precisely what we are doing anyway, but this i-Squad seems to be seriously lacking in respect.

Keith.

[Joe]

I agree. The i-squad scheme is nothing more than a points competition between fans. That's not what promoting Hayley is about.

I did visit the i-squad site and was surprised to learn that it only allowed USA residents to participate. Not even our friends in Canada. As soon as I saw that top ten column, I knew it was nothing more that a marketing ploy.

lowlight, if you want to contribute to Hayley's cause, share your enthusiasm with a website that really cares about Hayley.

[stevemacdonald]

I joined the i-squad the day it was announced in here and all I can say it it's for the birds!

The system didn't work for me. I did what they asked (told others about it) and did not get any points.

Looking back on my wasted time with it, I see it is just another way to flood the net with spam, albeit Hayley spam.

[HWI]

I have been in contact with Mike from the i-Squad team and we have discussed the differences we had. The big obstacle for me was the fact that it was restricted to residents of the USA only. As a result of our discussions, the differences have been resolved and we can now offer our full support to the i-Squad.

It is intended that the i-Squad will ultimately open to international members, but the work required is collosal. The first thing they have to do is programme in the codes for all the different countries. Then, within that, they have to programme in all the postal/zip codes for each country and enable the software to recognise those postal/zip codes, thereby ascribing them to the addresses they correspond to. This is a massive operation and, as time is short, it was decided to go ahead with what they have already got.

I would ask everyone in a position to do so, to go along and register. Then, see what you can do to help raise Hayley's profile in the USA.

Keith.