Sunny Monkey

Thanks for that. All going through my head already. Many other sites charge. U2, Jackson, etc etc Much higher fees, even now.

At the moment it is my hope that I will never have to charge. Just getting a general feeling "just in case"

Well, we have another great announcement tonight. CW is a moderator too. Would have been ages ago if I had bothered to check as I thought I had already made CW into a mod

Ho hum, all things are now present and correct.

Congrats CW! I am sure others will share in the delight that you are now a mod too

Welcome. Great to have you on board!

If it wasn't for you pesky kids I would have a social life again lol

Oh, and we have so much cool stuff here that if we moved it into a private paid forum it would have more secret stuff in than the secret society hehe

Jengafer, in short.

We were going to be associated

We are now not

We do have the latest and most active information

And indeed we have the best people! Welcome!

Universal loved the site. They got in touch with me, I went for a meeting. A week later they just said "conflict of interests" and went quiet occasionally asking posts be removed etc. I still have those posts.

I have no idea why they went from so keen to not keen, they have never said. I agree that it is CRAZY that they don't want us on board.

As for if CW left, I would take over the roll, but CW does such an amazing job there would be not point me writing it all up as well. That's not to belittle what CW does as it is very valuable and I would look to try and push some of the revenue that way if required / there was some left after hosting etc etc.

So, I agree, we do lots to promote Mika and pretty much the best and most up to date resource on the web for him. It would be nice if Universal took us on board, but there are also many benefits to not being tied into the editorial side of things inside their company

Still need to see on the merchandise. If we find we get a green light on it, there may be no need to fees or any kind

Great input though, thank you!

---- I must go find some food now

Even with all the "yes" answers here, I will keep it 100% free as long as poss as I love running the site and love having you all as "friends" on here Guinchogirl loves coming home to hundreds of posts too hehe

Thanks eric!

Wow, thanks for the comments and thoughts. Already a great insight into how to maybe proceed. I run this for me and for YOU so it's important that you get what you want

I will always try and give as much as possible to you all, free or paid.

Will wait for some more replies from other members as if only 5 or so people want to pay it could be a little tough hehe Very encouraging so far

Sunny

That all goes without saying.

As for "small fee" what are people felling here? What if we said, £1 / $2 a month? That reasonable? Would add extra features into the site like larger inboxes, special user titles and colours, and some other bits as well as a membership card, some badges etc when you first join?

Sunny

Ok serious note at the moment.... don't worry, not THAT serious yet.

This site is amazing. It is growing VERY quickly as you all know. Hell, when you go away from a site for an hour and come back to almost 300 posts you know its a great site.

The thing is, it takes lots of time and resources to run it and keep it running. I don't have any problem spending the time and money at the moment but I do have worries for the near future.

I need to start investigating larger servers (as some of you may have seen the "blips" in down time already) and that brings costs which i MAY not be able to cover out my pocket.

Anyway.. aside from a few weeks, this site has remained advertising free and I want to keep it that way. It's our club, and we love it.

My dilema is that originally, it was planned to have a VIP group where you would get a member card, newsletter every now and again, advanced dibs on tickets for gigs, access to exclusives etc. Now, because of the whole universal thing (WHICH WE WILL NOT GO INTO) we wont get access to the tickets or exclusives like we may have done. As such, I am a little stuck in how I will be able to monetise these forums to fund the running costs.

I don't think there is much argument over the fact of if this place is better than the official site (lol) right? And I will fund it as long as I can. But..

I need to know... what would you want as "paying" members.

OR I need to know if you would donate at all.

Or any other suggestions on how we can keep this site up.

This is not something that is going to happen straight away, and the site would remain as it is now for all people who are not paying etc so don't panic. I am just voicing a concern and an inevitable point that this site will hit as a result of pure economics

Looking forward to what you all think

Sunny

Just a note, I am watching this thread and will edit / remove if it gets out of hand. So far you are all playing nice which is great as on many boards it would spiral out of control.

I would note though that sexuality and politics should not blind side people to the pure fun and music genius that Mika is

So keep your reality hats on, and indeed your friendly hats so that this board can remain one of the friendliest and happiest that these is on the net!

Don't get me wrong, well done on the healthy debate, there are some issues we can not hide from. The only issue is when people start saying he IS or ISNT anything without the cold hard fact of him saying it himself. Speculation and thought is one thing, total accusation is another.

Cheers

Sunny

Hey all!

As Mika would say, everybody's gonna love today!

As such I thought some of you may be interested in this one. A site that lets you send anonymous text messages. Perfect for sending an anon valentines text message to someone that you admire. Alas I think it is UK only but still, many of you may love this one for sure

Of course, it is also good for practical jokes, or indeed sending a valentines to those people you feel sorry for without worry of being found out.

Go on, cheer someone up for the day or express your desires anonymously

You can find it at http://www.TextAnonymous.com

Dave

Oh my god, what have I done!!!???

Shall I turn off the site to help you all?

heh heh

Now you all have some idea of how much time I spend looking at the site. I have to read every single post, monitor the stats, approve things, do the promotion, reply to the many PMs, welcome each member etc. LOL If only I got paid to do it

YEAH! , keep it going its much appreciated and has become a nice part of my life , well I used to have a social life ....

Yeah me too, though I see that you are now an "Ultimate Mika Fan" and have made a huge number of posts Well done!

Where abouts in west sussex?

I took a list of "filtered" questions from all of you when I went to meet the folks at Universal. I passed it on, but never got anything back which is a shame.

Will try and get some directly to him in the future, but at the moment the only medium is Myspace so it's tough. May ping a few over to Brian May though to see what he thinks about Mika and his success so far.

Its SUNNY , SUNNY Is Mika!!!

Alas no. Do you really think that if I was Mika I would have time to run this and be able to post at the same time as performing live? lol

Sunny

You have to remember he is being dragged about at the moment launching his career. He posts a little on myspace, but really doesn't get much time at the moment.

Perhaps you should all copy a link to this particular thread and send it to him on myspace begging him to come and say hi. It's amazing what the "masses" can do But be gentle and nice, he gets thousands of messages as it is.

I would guess that once the UK tour is over he will have some more time for mingling

Sunny

Thank you ALL for your wonderful comments. Just gives me more energy for running this site. Yeah it costs me some cash, and yeah it costs me a lot of time, but damn is it worth it!

Well done to all of you, and we are already at 1086 members since starting this thread which is fantastic news!

To top it all off, Mika got another week in the number 1 spot and his album is Number 1 too!

FAN DABI DOSI!

Sunny

Couldn't agree more. Totally top notch on all fronts! Thank You

Not seeing the pop ups here. Anyone else? Could be an issue your end?

Nice find!