Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes (Updated)

[Ben]

Happy Memorial Day everyone!

The purpose of this message is two fold. First, to let you all know that I am now the owner of Alizée America. Brad will stick around as an administrator, so no need for teary farewells, but obviously any questions that you may have directed toward him in the past should now come to me. Second is to talk about what this means for the future of the site. Over three years Brad nurtured Alizée America into, in my opinion, the very best English language community dedicated to our fée clochette. So for that let's offer him our deepest thanks, gratitude, and congratulations! Because Brad did such a great job, more things will stay the same here than will change. There might be a few tweaks along the way, but our clean layout and laid back approach isn't going anywhere. And the podcast especially is a feature I want to keep going and growing!

But why stop there? Though the USA will always remain our focus, I recently created the "apprendre l'anglais" forum as a way to reach out to our international friends. We're looking for bilingual members to staff it, so drop us a line if you're interested! We should also draw more attention to the fantastic creative work that comes out of this community. I have a few ideas in mind, but the first is the new fan art area. Please bear with us as we migrate old posts! In addition, our video section was one of the main reasons Brad started this site, so we'll resume regular updates there as well. In the years since we started, however, streaming quality on places like YouTube has increased dramatically, and I'd like to upgrade ours to compete. We'll be experimenting with this, so stay tuned!

Last, and this is something more general that will happen over time, I'd like to slightly tweak the focus of this website. Alizée has enjoyed tremendous success in Mexico thanks to grassroots fan support. While hurdles like aversion to foreign-language music present a challenge to replicating that success in the United States and Canada, it's not impossible. Alizée America should be a platform for that promotion. We're already a gateway to the world of Alizée online, but we can also be on the streets and in the media, showing people what they're missing. I hope we can work together with other fan sites to set up teams of people across the country, like I began to do with Lilly Town New York.

We'll always be a resource where fans can come for the latest news, media, or just to chat. But I'd like for us to also be a place where people give as well as receive - a site with a mission. Because Alizée as an artist, and we as her fans, deserve a chance at her being successful here. Please don't hesitate to post any questions or suggestions you might have about this or anything else. Whether we reach our goals or not, it's sure to be quite an adventure. Hope you join us for the ride!

Thanks for reading,

Ben
Owner, AlizeeAmerica.com