What's In A Name? - Music Gear Network

[soapbox]

Did anyone notice the new moniker for our favorite site?

 

Music Player has become Music Gear Network.

 

What's In A Name? Does this change mean anything? If so, then what does it mean?

 

Inquiring minds want to know!

[coyote]

Heck yeah I noticed.

 

It's interesting to see the evolution. These mags once were about getting information to musicians, and facilitating that by selling ad copy. Now, as the name change makes clear, they are about facilitating the sale of new gear - and the articles exist merely to serve that end.

 

Or maybe I'm just a bit cynical

[Rick K.]

Originally posted by coyote:

evolution

Uh, oh. Someone brought up evolution.

 

Rick

[Dave Bryce]

Here's what's up:

 

--

 

Dear "Citizen of the Forums,"

 

All of us at MusicPlayer.com would like to thank you for your participation, insights, and contributions to our forums over the past few years. "Dot-coms" have come and gone, yet we're still here. A lot of that is because of your support and enthusiasm, coupled with the dedication of people within our parent company, United Entertainment Media.

 

As you may know, MusicPlayer.com is now being revitalized and expanded thanks to a partnership with the Music Gear Network. Much hard work has been going on behind the scenes, and some of it (like the revised and frequently updated home page) has already gone public -- with much more

to come.

 

On or about the first week of October, the forums will be consolidated to a new set of servers, which should result in more efficient and reliable operation. We anticipate a smooth transition, but you know about computers and software...major changes are rarely glitchless. So if the forums are down temporarily, or you encounter technical difficulties, don't panic! The forums will be back as soon as possible, with a new and improved infrastructure.

 

Special thanks go to Dendy Jarrett, part of the original MusicPlayer.com team and moderator of the Drum forum, for spearheading this effort.

 

As moderator of the "Sound, Studio, and Stage" forum, I'm thrilled that the forums will not only continue, but have been given a major "vote of

confidence" as an essential, vital part of this site.

 

Again, thanks for your participation...you are what makes this whole thing so much fun!

 

Ever onward,

 

Craig Anderton

Creative Director, MusicPlayer.com

Executive Editor, EQ magazine

[Intheether]

I think calling it "Music Gear Network" is more inclusive to the variety of people that post here. We're not all music "players" - some are engineers, computer gurus, behind the scenes marketing folks and, yes, plain old gear heads.

So long as the boards are up and running....potato po-tah-to

[Slowly]

And the band played on! Kcbass

[Felix_dup1]

From the press release here ...

 

MGN is a vendor-neutral channel development company focused on growing the musical instruments industry. Its mission is to bring buyers and sellers together through a combination of Internet technologies and traditional sales and marketing methods. MGN is not a gear dealer; neither is it a media entity. Rather, the company focuses upon creating new sales and information channels for all constituents of the musical instrument marketplace. Music Gear Network is a Valeocom, Inc. company.

[Pim]

The download speed is excellent since today. I like it...

[soapbox]

Dave and John, thanks for the info!

[Matt Dula]

I have responded to this issue in another post, but will do so again here.

 

Music Gear Network is a separate company that is partnered with United Entertainment Media's Music Player Group. Our responsibility in this partnership is to rebuild the Music Player websites and to host the forums.

 

I personally am an avid gearhead and am very excited to have my company partnered with Music Player. Of course, we are interested in seeing a healthy music gear marketplace. But we view that as a two way street. It is not just about dealers and vendors selling more products. It is also about buyers finding the gear they want and need at prices they can afford.

 

Beyond this, we want to foster goodwill, facilitate the free flow of information and generally help the music making process become a better and better experience for people.

 

Increasing gear sales and doing good in this marketplace are not at all mutually exclusive. At least that is the way we look at it. We especially appreciate being partnered with Music Player because both of our companies maintain a strict vendor neutral stance. People debate this for sure, but Craig Anderton will never write a favorable review for a piece of gear because someone is paying him to do so. And Craig represents the entire attitude of Music Player Group. Our mutual goal is to provide good, solid information to people so that they can make better music and reasonable gear purchasing decisions.

 

I have spent the past several hours going through these forums following the cut over to our servers and am very impressed with the quality of dialog here. It is truly a privilege for us to be hosting these forums.

 

Please email me with any ideas or comments you have. I would love to hear them, especially as we build out the Music Player sites, including Keyboard, EQ, Guitar Player, Bass Player and more.

 

Matt Dula

Music Gear Network

[soapbox]

Matt, thanks for answering again here. When something important comes up, I often create the same topic in more than one forum, so that it may be discussed by the community at large. I think that this subject qualifies as "important!"

[Stephen Fortner]

Well, the curmudgeonly, cynical view is that the replacement of the term "Player" with "Gear" signifies ever-increasing commercialization and MI journalism going down the tubes and all that. But the community is the sum of its people, and this is probably one of the best bunch of people on the net. I wouldn't want to see it renamed "why-learn-to-play-when-you-can-buy-a-groovebox.com" but short of that, I expect that this will continue to be the same inclusive, objective, and user-friendly place I have come to know and love. And yeah, "gear" is more inclusive to engineers, vendors, reviwers, everyone. If I was at the meeting where they were deciding on a new name, I might have suggested "MusicTechNet". Snappy!

[Stephen Fortner]

Oh, and let me add that the new servers are also snappy, even all the way out here to SoCal. Nice!