: How about selling shares? I am also in favor of a membership offering the perks you mentioned. Given the choice, I would vote for a membership as long as the price is right. Thanks.

Hi John,

We've got all the membership information available <a href="http://www.hitsquad.com/cgi/rd/hqmemt1_click/rd.pl/?http://www.hitsquad.com/membersonly/?toptab">here</a>.

As for selling shares, it has always been my goal to
one day reach the level at which we can offer shares
to all the people who participate in Hitsquad, it
would be wonderful if musicians everywhere had the
opportunity to become real owners of Hitsquad.

Unfortunately the way the share markets have gone over
the last year for internet related businesses means
that you can no longer easily find the financial
support necessary from various financial/share trading
institutions to make a public offer viable.

The only way to do it now is the same way it used to
be before the dot com bubble burst - demonstrate that
you have a stable and steadily growing profitable
business over a number of years, then offer shares.

Thanks,
Jason.

: In a word "NO"! Thanks.

I agree with the sentiment, but what other suggestions
do you have for replacing the income we used to get
from banner advertising?

At the risk of sounding boring for repeating myself,
if we can't find a way to replace this lost income
then the is a real likelihood of being forced to
reduce the level of free services here.

Thanks,
Jason.

: They are ok but I am not thrilled about "Pop-Up ads" on HITSQUAD.

Hi Kent,

Thanks for your feedback. I'm not particularly thrilled
about pop-ups either which is why we are offering non
pop-up access for members.

Unfortunately we can't offer this to non-members as we
have to replace the lost banner income to continue
to be able to afford to keep all the free services
online.

Thanks,
Jason.

: Please, please - NO pop up ads. If you do put them in, you can cancel my subscription!

Hi Con,

I appreciate your feelings about this which is why
I've raised the issue here.

I think you may have missed the point however. If
the lost income from banners is not replaced then
you will not have service to get a free subscription
to at this site and many other sites.

The question still remains - what is the most acceptable
way to replace the lost banner income to keep this
service online?

Jason.

: The prospect of free internet becoming a thing of the past should ring bells on all of us.
: I strongly disagree with the paid membership issue, if it means that this site's content will be out of limits for non members. You don't need me to tell you how much help your site was for some of us. I must tell you though, that if the only thing you had in the download section was a crummy drum machine that played only one out of ten times you run it (& kept missing the tempo), there would be at least one person who would try it & maby write his music with it, so if you can, keep it AVAILABLE.
: You should place more ads if you needed to. I don't worry about any pop-ups, or banners. There is always a good pop-up killer if you need one...

Hi Kozida,

You are so right about what could happen to the free
internet - we all need to work hard to keep it free
because that's when the net works best.

The memberships would only be optional and all the
free content here will stay free - especially that
dodgy drum machine, after all getting it right one
in ten times makes it better than some drummers I've
worked with :) (flame bait?)

One thing though, you missed the point about pop-ups
and pop-unders - if you use software to prevent them
then we're back at square one because we only get
paid when the ad is shown so the free net would still
be in doubt.

If we don't all work together to find a way to keep
the greater part of the net free then the only free
services left will be ones controlled by a small group
of very large and powerful companies that have the
scale to provide free services in exchange for massive
promotion for huge corporate sponsors (just think of TV).
Unfortunately the musician side of music doesn't have
many huge corporate sponsors.

Jason.

: Jason,

: Thanks first off for giving the vote to the people here. It's makes all the difference. Thanks also for the great site.. I direct everyone here for the file area alone.

: The concern I have with the membership is the free CD may pose problems when dealing with members around over the world. I live in england and sending me the CD every period may be more of an expense than you would want. Also, the offer of discount at music retailers may be a problem if you are expected to balance that globally.

: The reality of it is, if you honestly believe that the pop up windows are necessary these days for the site to survive, then I will happily live with them. As long as they're are not those ones that sneak themselves into the bottom right of the screen and wont go away until you have quit the browser, have you had those???

: Again, thanks for throwing it at the forum. I vote for the pop ups...

: Cheers

: Steve...R

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the quick response!

We've done our homework and we can afford to send
the Newsletter & CD-Rom to nearly all of the countries
where visitors to this site live.

We've also never had the type of pop-ups or pop-unders
that you have to kill your browser to get rid of,
same goes for ones that keep popping up when you
close the window.

Cheers,
Jason.

: : i need emc style works univrsal for my roland g800,I get pro jammer 4.0!

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