SAVE HARPERSGLOBE.COM - Femaleprodigy1978
http://www.petitiononline.com/harpers...
To: CBS Interactive and CBS.com
The Global Interactive Community (GIC) of Harper's Globe is a continuously growing community that is proving its ability to be a long-term and thriving entertainment venture. As a community we would like to ask that CBS keep the Harpers Globe website active, and continue to produce new, exciting and encapsulating material viewers worldwide even after the completion of the Harpers Island TV show. Harpersglobe.com provides CBS with a ready audience and fan base for new interactive content and community that they can use to help test new forms of entertainment as CBS continues to create them. It (harpersglobe.com) also will provide an archive and continuing story for audiences throughout the world as Harpers Island is continuing to be released. Not only will the Harpers Globe community benefit from the continuation of the story but so will CBS as the show continues to air throughout the world and later is released on DVD.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
WE WILL BE HEARD.
It seems as thought CBS would just like to throw all of our work out the window as soon as the show is over, but we built such a large and dedicated community that we don't want to see it go away. Help us save our site! Sign the petion linked above before CBS committs murder to yet another good product by NOT letting it thrive outside the shadow of Harpers Island. We dedicated too many hours of work on the wiki, clue hunting, and community produced art to just throw it away without a fight!
Please check out these links for more information on the possible closure of the site: http://www.harpersglobe.com/discussion_posts/list/2/16453/1
and http://www.harpersglobe.com/discussion_posts/list/2/16276/1
SEE previous story:The Future of HarpersGlobe.com
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Posts
This entire situation seems to indicate a certain amount of ignorance on the part of both CBS and Eqal, if this is all in fact true. So far we have not seen an official statement from either Eqal, Inc. or CBS and the only word we have had is from the harpersglobe.com site administrator.
ReplyDeleteOnce a site has been build why would Eqal, Inc. and CBS destroy it. Its already running on Eqal's server so the major expense of building a site are over. Fans have spent countless hours building a wiki and other areas of the site.
Is this what Eqal means by a "social show". Maybe they should have marketed it as "slash and burn". It defies logic that Eqal, Inc. would agree to such terms and if they did why was the fan base not fully informed up front?
(We are sure someone will point out the humor of using Eqal and logic in the same sentence, but hey, we think you get the point.)
If you want to get your point across contact:
ReplyDeleteLeslie Moonves - President and Chief Executive Officer of CBS Corporation
Sumner Murray Redstone Chairman of the Board - CBS
Quincy Smith, CEO, CBS Interactive
Miles Beckett CEO Eqal, Inc.
Let THEM know what YOU think of this decision.
The harpersglobe.com site administrator, Jason Matthews, is a paid employee of Eqal, so I would say a statement from him is an official statement from Eqal.
ReplyDeleteMy guess would be that it's people like Jason Matthews who are indirectly responsible for CBS's decision here. Since they would have to continue to pay him and others who work on the site if they intended to keep it running, it probably makes smarter business sense to simply close the site down and save the resources. And as far as Eqal goes, they seem to not have the funds and/or desire to keep up such a project on their own.
ReplyDeleteBasically, I think this comes down to Eqal's desire to have complete control over their websites. There was once a day when LG15.com was run by volunteers (such as Broken Kid and Zoey) and anyone could contribute. Then they decided to pay Broken Kid (as far as I know, Zoey never received a dime, so at least there's that...) and lock down LGPedia, and suddenly freedom was taken from the fans... at an obvious cost, both with the fanbase and the increased cost of the site. If Eqal had let HarpersGlobe.com be fan-run, the way they originally ran their sites, they could avoid the costs of any manpower involved in the upkeep of the site and we probably wouldn't be having this issue today.
Given all the hype about harpersglobe.com we would have expected any public statement to come from the top in either the form of a press release or a high level executive statement.
ReplyDeleteHas any of the other web-press reported that harpersglobe.com is closing? We know that Eqal has an "open phone line" to most of them.
That is not to say that harpersglobe.com is not closing. Just that the statement by the site administrator seemed more directed at members of harpersglobe.com. Was it a trial balloon to deflate the impact of future news? Was it an attempt to motivate fans to protest to CBS? Why did it not mention Eqal's role?
What is unclear is why Eqal would ever have agreed to such a closure in the first place. Harpersglobe.com is build on Eqal's so called "software" and runs on their server. Eqal has build a community of around 13,000. Yes, this is relatively insignificant in comparison to the 8 million or so original viewers of Harper's Island but it is still a friendly online community.
In all its public statements about "social shows" Eqal stresses the importance of community. Does Eqal consider a community a disposable commodity. If not why did they not ensure the survival of the their "social show community" in the original contract with CBS?
This entire thing makes no sense. Yes this maybe how traditional Tv companies can be expected to behave (Yes, ABC, we have still not forgotten about "My So Called Life" but Eqal was supposed to understand the web dynamics and that includes how web communities work. Clearly if this is true, THEY DO NOT.
"Does Eqal consider a community a disposable commodity?"
ReplyDeleteHello? Have you been to lg15.com recently?!