What's the Deal with Harmony Central?

[jazzyitalian]

Am I imagining things, or is Harmony Central migrating into becoming a commercial outlet for Musician's Friend and GC?

Has anyone noticed that?

I just logged onto their site and saw all dressed up with Musician Friends banner ads, and get this...The user review section is toast! It appears that every single review posted since it's inception (since 2000-ish) has been removed.

Can you imagine? All the effort and time some people spent in contributing a review was buried by the new managers. How insulting.

If a forum is run by the same people that own a large dot.com then in my opinion, it's no longer relevant.

That's sad.. Well, we still have TalkBass, BGRA.net and a few others.

J

[HeavyJazz77]

Who do you think owns them?!

[Winfred]

$$$ eventually owns, or kills, everything.

[mjac28]

I used to love their reviews and relied on them for many purchases I don't know what direction they are trying to go in?.

[jazzyitalian]

Originally Posted by HeavyJazz77

Who do you think owns them?!

Believe it or not, I actually thought they were up until recently, an independant group that was unaffiliated with retail channels.

But now I think they were bought by Musician's Friend and if I'm not correct, I believe the group that owns Musicians Friend also owns Guitar Centers.

I've been seeing some activity on the BGRA site now. The guy that runs that site Matt Schmill is going to update and upgrade the site. He also told me that as of recent, he has started to see an increase in reviewer posts. No doubt that this causally related to the actions taken by the new Harmony Central.

[jonathanhughes]

Yep, they're owned by Musician's Friend:

http://investing.businessweek.com/re...rivcapId=92114

[jazzyitalian]

Thanks Jonathan!

[nashvillebill]

I tried to find some reviews last night and finally gave up, so I guess their review pages no longer exist?

[Robf]

A few months ago Musicians Friend published a catalog with an Internet community theme. They listed the most popular forums (TB was number three) and a large article about Harmony Central.

I think they did mention it's owned by the parent company of Musicians Friend and the large amount of gear reviews available. Sad to see the change, HC was really the first forum that helped me find details about instruments and playing.

[mogpipe]

The reviews haven't been gone for long, I checked em out just a week or so ago.

[Febs]

Originally Posted by nashvillebill

I tried to find some reviews last night and finally gave up, so I guess their review pages no longer exist?

Their forum software had a major crash about a month or so ago, and they were forced to roll out new software on an emergency basis before they were ready to make the transition. Last I heard (which was a few weeks ago), the transition of the review pages was planned but had not yet happened.

[bongomania]

Originally Posted by jonathanhughes

Yep, they're owned by Musician's Friend:

http://investing.businessweek.com/re...rivcapId=92114

"As of June 10, 2005, Harmony Central, Inc. is a subsidiary of Musician's Friend, Inc."

Somehow I don't think that acquisition in 2005 caused the reviews to be deleted eight years later.

[uOpt]

The people making the decisions about forum software over there obviously are not regular users of forums. They have shown their hand before in the other failed move, it showed that they only support point-n-click reading but no proper conversations, read status tracking etc.

Plus they better provide forwarding for old links. Of course they aren't good enough to actually do it and the people making the decisions don't see the "value" in making old links work. Because the google index is rebuilt quickly and no other links matter, right.

I hope the whole GC/Musiciansfriend thing dies pretty soon. If Fender takes damage from being in bed with them then that's their mistake.

[Handyman]

Originally Posted by mjac28

I used to love their reviews and relied on them for many purchases I don't know what direction they are trying to go in?.

Irrelevance, I think.

This reeks of corporate bean counters trying to "monetize their investment". Try to remember back to what happened to MySpace after their buyout...

[Pilgrim]

I used to use their reviews a lot.

Have looked at the site exactly ONCE in the past two years. Couldn't find what I wanted.

They "modernized" their interface to the point of uselessness. It's a common fault with people who don't pay attention to the users, only to the owners and programmers.

They have now achieved irrelevance.

[uOpt]

Originally Posted by Pilgrim

They "modernized" their interface to the point of uselessness. It's a common fault with people who don't pay attention to the users, only to the owners and programmers.

I assure you that the programmers are usually forced to dumb UIs down. They are the ones that really value computers that function well and give you what you need in a predictable manner.

Unfortunately their bosses, who use computers less than the consumers or customers, have the opposite view. If they can't figure it out with no computer experience, nobody can, right?

[winston]

Wow! It was bad enough when they redesigned the review section a couple years ago, gutting the previous version's simple, sensible functionality.

The original HC review section was one of the most useful online music gear resources ever. NAMM coverage used to be way better organized as well. I'll occasionally check the forums for a Craig Anderton review, but that's it.

[MatticusMania]

Originally Posted by jazzyitalian

Am I imagining things, or is Harmony Central migrating into becoming a commercial outlet for Musician's Friend and GC?

Has anyone noticed that?

I just logged onto their site and saw all dressed up with Musician Friends banner ads, and get this...The user review section is toast! It appears that every single review posted since it's inception (since 2000-ish) has been removed.

Can you imagine? All the effort and time some people spent in contributing a review was buried by the new managers. How insulting.

If a forum is run by the same people that own a large dot.com then in my opinion, it's no longer relevant.

That's sad.. Well, we still have TalkBass, BGRA.net and a few others.

J

Hmm, I havent visited Harmony Central since I stumbled upon Talkbass (because of Harmony Central).
I once wrote a review for a Digitech Bass Processor, and a rep from Digitech sent me a free tshirt.
I dont think a forum is irrelevant just because its owned by a .com, though. I think a forum is as relevant as the users participating make it.

[AnchorHoy]

Originally Posted by Pilgrim

They "modernized" their interface to the point of uselessness. It's a common fault with people who don't pay attention to the users, only to the owners and programmers.

They have now achieved irrelevance.

Similar situation with the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree travel forum

Right around New Year's 2013 thay took the entire forum down and "rebuilt" it into a pathetic shadow of what it once was. A decade's worth of extremely valuable and very specific advice/observations that were not available anywhere else went *poof*, along with everybody's PMs. They're now talking about making the PM's available "for a very limited time" but a huge number of people who don't check the site every day are undoubtedly going to miss the window of opportinity for that

The current site is now splattered with seriously annoying advertising, much harder to use than the old format, and any posts that are even slightly critical of the changes are quickly deleted by the mods

It used to be a great place to find out about travel destinations. Now pretty close to worthless. You can do better with a random Google search

It's almost as if they want to destroy whatever value was there originally

[winston]

Originally Posted by AnchorHoy

It's almost as if they want to destroy whatever value was there originally

Also reminiscent of the "new" SoundCloud...it's amazing that the developers gutted the "Groups" feature that made SoundCloud the vibrant community it is.