dsmith2904
ONE love, blood, life
<!-- http://bonovox.interference.com/siteoftheweek/u2chart-thmb.jpg -->
By Devlin Smith
2004.03
According to the Office of Security, we are currently at a Blue, or guarded, level on the advisory scale. This information won�t affect lines at the airport or cause a flicker on the Fox News channel, but it is of great importance to U2 fans.
Earlier this year, Shannon Clancy, better known on Interference.com as Headache in a Suitcase, created the U2 Album Advisory system. Based on the scale used by the US Dept. of Homeland Security to gauge terrorism threat levels, Clancy�s scale assesses the likelihood of a new U2 album coming out based on official and unofficial chatter—rumors, leaks, news reports and so on.
Reaction to the advisory system was really positive, encouraging Clancy, a 23-year-old Long Islander, to create a Web home for the Office of U2 Security. Interference.com spoke with Clancy about his site and what the future holds for the Office of U2 Security.
Where did you first get the idea to create an alert for the next U2 album and how did it come together?
It actually was Interference that gave me the idea for the chart. There was so much talk going on about this and that—March release, May release, September release, 2005 release, Universal Italy told me this, Universal France told me that, The Edge's Cousin said it's gonna be a double-CD of nothing but Barry Mannilow covers—so one day in mid-January I was reading all these rumors while watching TV, Fox News had some press conference from Tom Ridge about the lowering of the Homeland Security Advisory System from Orange Alert to Yellow Alert, and it just hit me. I searched Google for a copy of the actual Homeland Security Advisory System, saved it, and just changed everything to be U2-related.
When did you first debut the scale and what was the original reaction?
I debuted the U2 Album Advisory for the first time in the Where the Album Has No Name section of Interference in a thread called "A Message From the Office of U2 Security...". When I first posted the Chart it was done simply as a joke to try and bring some levity to the situation. The initial response was great. Everyone seemed to think two things, it was pretty damn funny, and that I must have a lot of free time on my hands.
What made you decide to launch a whole Office of U2 Security Web site?
A month or so ago I ran into Pat Bremer, the owner/founder of U2Mart.com, at an Unforgettable Fire show in Manhattan. He told me about how he got his site going, and it kind of inspired me to get my own site started. I had always wanted to start my own site eventually but just didn't have an idea of how exactly to get one started. When people started taking to the whole idea in the thread, it gave me the idea of putting together a Web page to branch out a bit. It also added to the joke that the so-called "Office of U2 Security" now had its own Web page.
What has the reaction to the Web site been?
I've been shocked by the reaction to the Web page. I thought I'd get a few people from Interference and nothing more, at least at first. But after I put the banner ad that Chizip made for me into circulation in the U2Exit.com banner network, my hits began shooting up by the hundreds. I began looking at the site statistics that Geocities provides and saw that people were linking to the site from all sorts of different places. I mean people were talking about the site in the Yahoo U2 Midwest group. I was stupefied that non-Interferencers from all across the nation were looking at my silly little Web page. I only signed up for the free Geocities Web page, which has a data transfer limit. The Web page has been down many times because of an overload of hits causing the data transfer to exceed the limit for a free site.
What are your plans for the site?
My original plans were just to get something started and slowly branch out as the site got more popular. But I had so many hits in the first 10 days of existence that I've been looking in to moving its own Web page, as opposed to a Geocities hosted Web page. The only problem with that right now is the money it costs to do so, so I'm gonna save whatever extra bucks I have and eventually go buy my own domain name and move the page off of the Geocities hosted site. I'm not exactly loaded, and those student loans take up a large chunk of my paycheck, but hopefully by the spring I'll be able to move the site to a true Web page.
What will happen to the alert system and the Web site once a firm album date is announced?
Well of course the first move would be to raise the system to a Red alert. I'd continue to update the site as often as I can as more and more news comes out regarding singles, b-sides, internet leaks of the songs, etc. etc. I'd start changing the look of the site as the artwork for the new album is revealed, maybe I can put some sort of countdown clock using Java script once the exact date is announced. Then comes the tour, etc. etc. I'd like to take the site towards more of a full fledged U2 news site. Sites like Interference and U2Log, @U2, etc. do a great job, but there was another great U2 news site that left us in this past year,YouTwo.net. Hopefully one day this silly little site might be able to replace that void, who knows.
How did it feel for you when Chizip started using your alert system in
his sig on Interference?
Well Chizip designed the banner for the site which appears on a couple of different U2 Banner sharing networks. His banner has definitely helped the publicity of the site. As any of us on Interference now, he's pretty damn good at making .GIF files, so naturally I thought of him when I was looking for a banner.
If the band members saw your site, what do you hope their reaction would be?
I hope they'd like it and find it funny, that's really all I hope for from anyone who views the site. There are a lot of serious U2 news sites out there, I'm trying to bring a little more humor to everything, let people be informed and entertained. Maybe I'm the ZooTV of U2 news sites—informative, funny, ironic, sarcastic—that basically describes my own personality so if I were to do a U2 fan site it would definitely have to be that way as well.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with Interference.com readers about the site?
Thanks again for all the support you've given to the site. I apologize for the times when the site is down and you get the "site has surpassed its data transfer" message. I'm working on fixing that problem. Keep checking the site for updates, keep telling your friends—spread the disease!
By Devlin Smith
2004.03
According to the Office of Security, we are currently at a Blue, or guarded, level on the advisory scale. This information won�t affect lines at the airport or cause a flicker on the Fox News channel, but it is of great importance to U2 fans.
Earlier this year, Shannon Clancy, better known on Interference.com as Headache in a Suitcase, created the U2 Album Advisory system. Based on the scale used by the US Dept. of Homeland Security to gauge terrorism threat levels, Clancy�s scale assesses the likelihood of a new U2 album coming out based on official and unofficial chatter—rumors, leaks, news reports and so on.
Reaction to the advisory system was really positive, encouraging Clancy, a 23-year-old Long Islander, to create a Web home for the Office of U2 Security. Interference.com spoke with Clancy about his site and what the future holds for the Office of U2 Security.
Where did you first get the idea to create an alert for the next U2 album and how did it come together?
It actually was Interference that gave me the idea for the chart. There was so much talk going on about this and that—March release, May release, September release, 2005 release, Universal Italy told me this, Universal France told me that, The Edge's Cousin said it's gonna be a double-CD of nothing but Barry Mannilow covers—so one day in mid-January I was reading all these rumors while watching TV, Fox News had some press conference from Tom Ridge about the lowering of the Homeland Security Advisory System from Orange Alert to Yellow Alert, and it just hit me. I searched Google for a copy of the actual Homeland Security Advisory System, saved it, and just changed everything to be U2-related.
When did you first debut the scale and what was the original reaction?
I debuted the U2 Album Advisory for the first time in the Where the Album Has No Name section of Interference in a thread called "A Message From the Office of U2 Security...". When I first posted the Chart it was done simply as a joke to try and bring some levity to the situation. The initial response was great. Everyone seemed to think two things, it was pretty damn funny, and that I must have a lot of free time on my hands.
What made you decide to launch a whole Office of U2 Security Web site?
A month or so ago I ran into Pat Bremer, the owner/founder of U2Mart.com, at an Unforgettable Fire show in Manhattan. He told me about how he got his site going, and it kind of inspired me to get my own site started. I had always wanted to start my own site eventually but just didn't have an idea of how exactly to get one started. When people started taking to the whole idea in the thread, it gave me the idea of putting together a Web page to branch out a bit. It also added to the joke that the so-called "Office of U2 Security" now had its own Web page.
What has the reaction to the Web site been?
I've been shocked by the reaction to the Web page. I thought I'd get a few people from Interference and nothing more, at least at first. But after I put the banner ad that Chizip made for me into circulation in the U2Exit.com banner network, my hits began shooting up by the hundreds. I began looking at the site statistics that Geocities provides and saw that people were linking to the site from all sorts of different places. I mean people were talking about the site in the Yahoo U2 Midwest group. I was stupefied that non-Interferencers from all across the nation were looking at my silly little Web page. I only signed up for the free Geocities Web page, which has a data transfer limit. The Web page has been down many times because of an overload of hits causing the data transfer to exceed the limit for a free site.
What are your plans for the site?
My original plans were just to get something started and slowly branch out as the site got more popular. But I had so many hits in the first 10 days of existence that I've been looking in to moving its own Web page, as opposed to a Geocities hosted Web page. The only problem with that right now is the money it costs to do so, so I'm gonna save whatever extra bucks I have and eventually go buy my own domain name and move the page off of the Geocities hosted site. I'm not exactly loaded, and those student loans take up a large chunk of my paycheck, but hopefully by the spring I'll be able to move the site to a true Web page.
What will happen to the alert system and the Web site once a firm album date is announced?
Well of course the first move would be to raise the system to a Red alert. I'd continue to update the site as often as I can as more and more news comes out regarding singles, b-sides, internet leaks of the songs, etc. etc. I'd start changing the look of the site as the artwork for the new album is revealed, maybe I can put some sort of countdown clock using Java script once the exact date is announced. Then comes the tour, etc. etc. I'd like to take the site towards more of a full fledged U2 news site. Sites like Interference and U2Log, @U2, etc. do a great job, but there was another great U2 news site that left us in this past year,YouTwo.net. Hopefully one day this silly little site might be able to replace that void, who knows.
How did it feel for you when Chizip started using your alert system in
his sig on Interference?
Well Chizip designed the banner for the site which appears on a couple of different U2 Banner sharing networks. His banner has definitely helped the publicity of the site. As any of us on Interference now, he's pretty damn good at making .GIF files, so naturally I thought of him when I was looking for a banner.
If the band members saw your site, what do you hope their reaction would be?
I hope they'd like it and find it funny, that's really all I hope for from anyone who views the site. There are a lot of serious U2 news sites out there, I'm trying to bring a little more humor to everything, let people be informed and entertained. Maybe I'm the ZooTV of U2 news sites—informative, funny, ironic, sarcastic—that basically describes my own personality so if I were to do a U2 fan site it would definitely have to be that way as well.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with Interference.com readers about the site?
Thanks again for all the support you've given to the site. I apologize for the times when the site is down and you get the "site has surpassed its data transfer" message. I'm working on fixing that problem. Keep checking the site for updates, keep telling your friends—spread the disease!
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i might cry... this is beautiful 
