TEAM: TO FANISTA OR NOT FANISTA?

Original Source

TO FANISTA OR NOT FANISTA?
Saturday, December 29, 2007

Alticor has hastily announced the sale of its interest in Fanista.com. Alticor claims it has sold its investment in Fanista to Power of Entertainment. Alticor claims that Power of Entertainment is the company that built and continues to run Fanista. A Google search of Power of Entertainment does not turn up any results as it is apparently too early for even Alticor's media department to have released their onslaught of press releases. Some obvious questions come to mind. Who owns Power of Entertainment? Why was Power of Entertainment never mentioned in any of the earlier press releases? What prompted this sale? If this was Alticor's intentions all along, why all the heavy press releases boasting the Amway name? I could go on and on.

A Quixtar email claims that "Alticor's involvement in Fanista was designed to bring us insights into the social networking phenomenon and how to marry e-commerce with online communities." How much could they have possibly learned in the approximately 30 days since Fanista launched? One conclusion could be that Fanista is a total flop. This would seem the likeliest conclusion. Earlier Quixtar claimed that they allowed IBOs to belong to both Quixtar and Fanista. This was an obvious violation of their non-compete clause. If their position was somehow that it was okay since Alticor owned both companies how can that continue after the reported sale of Fanista?

The Fanista unloading shows that Alticor is a company without direction. Alticor's claim that this was done to bring innovation to the Quixtar business is laughable. Money spent supposedly learning about Fanista would have been better spent addressing the ridiculous pricing current IBOs continue to endure. Alticor continues to fail to raise itself to "what's important next" thinking. If the Fanista experience was designed to enhance Quixtar why would Quixtar hide it from the IBOAI board? This is yet that latest example why AAQ's institutionalized dishonesty will be it's undoing.




December 28, 2007



FANISTA EXIT MESSAGE TO IBO LEADERS

To FC, IBOAI Board, Qualified Diamonds and above, and Qualified Platinums and above




Dear IBO Leader:

Last month we informed you of the launch of a company supported by Alticor Corporate Enterprises called Fanista. Today, we are sharing with you the news that Alticor is no longer an investor in Fanista, as its interest has been purchased by Power of Entertainment, the company that built and is running the Fanista website.

Alticor’s involvement in Fanista was designed to bring us insights into the social networking phenomenon and how to marry e-commerce with online communities. Our experience with Fanista is just one example of our commitment to bringing innovation to our business. We are pleased that we were able to exit this investment opportunity this early, and we are excited about Fanista’s future.

Innovation remains our goal, and we'll continue to explore opportunities to gain insights that will make the AMWAY®/QUIXTAR® business stronger, and in particular, bring consumer learnings from other channels in the marketplace into our core direct selling businesses.

Sincerely,





Jim Payne
Executive Vice President
Amway/Quixtar

Bill Payne
Chief of Staff
Alticor

Posted by The IBO Rebellion at 2:35 AM