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GMC Forum _ Competitions _ Winners Of Improve Gmc Competition

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl May 25 2010, 11:01 AM

RESULTS

Winners of the "Improve GMC" competition


I am proud to present the result of a very special competition at GMC. This time we asked you guys - GMC Students/Rockers - to come up with improvements ideas for the site. We then asked the GMC Instructors/Ultrarockers to nominate five winner candidates. Finally everyone got to vote for the three winners.

Congratulations to 1) Zen 2) ZakkWylde 3) KaznieNL. To remind you, these are the prizes you have got to look forward to:




Zen has a lot of cool suggestions - here are some of them:

* A monthly calender with to make it easy to attend all the the cool events/workshops we have got going on in the community. I agree that the way we have it now is quite messy and alot of the good stuff gets hidden in the deep caves of our forum.

This one is definitely coming - in fact it will be a key feature when build our own, customized community software. Among many things, this solution should cover a chat schedule with countdowns and chat topic announcement.

* Zen is not happy with the direction of the mtp program. We will keep experimenting with the mtp program to find a balance which works from an economical perspective and which allows for continuous learning with a private instructor mentor. I hope to return with an update soon.

* Zen wants to be able to go back to older recorded video chats - this is something which has been requested by many. You can expect to see this when we have a little more experience from the video chats - so far video chats are very new to us and an unstandardized GMC feature.

As you can see Zen is a worthy winner for this competition - be sure to check out more of his suggestions http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=3431.

Zakk Wylde had the idea of offering GMC "http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/wiki/index.php/GMC_Quick_Access".

In short the idea is to either sell GMC lessons "piecewise" or offer full access to the lesson archive for a limited amount of time.

Without diving to deep in the realms of site statistics and visitor behavior, I want to say that this sounds like a cool idea. Since many members have requested a cheaper alternative to accessing GMC content we should try to find a way.

When will this happen? Without too much technical hassle we have the option of offering full access for a limited time at a lower price. This is something we could test as a one day offer.

However the biggest limiting factor in making these decisions - is that at this stage GMC statistics aren't developed enough to allow for more complex payment ideas/tests. In order to safely make these decisions we need a custom way of analyzing our statistics not covered by standard solutions such as G Analytics.

This is in the making but not something we have prioritized so far. Our focus has always been to deliver as many user features as possible. However you guys are of course right in the sense that in the long run new successful ways of packaging/selling of GMC content will allow for even cooler user/site features.

Does this remind anyone else but me of how hard it is to achieve that golden balance in life?!

KaznieNL suggested we add a random lesson button. I like this idea a lot - maybe we could even call it "lesson stumble"..? This is probably quite easy to implement - the only question is how/where to present the button logically (without blurring the advanced search with yet an option). Right now I am thinking that it would kind of cool to have really big such button at the bottom end of the frontpage.

* Kaznie also suggested we move the sign up link to a more prominent spot on the website. Ultimately this goes down to how we want to prioritize with the few pixels we have got to our disposal - a little experimentation with this is a cool idea however. Perhaps we could even do it so that logged in members aren't affected/don't see it.

There were several other cool suggestions as well - Keilnoth had the idea of upgrading the lick of the day page/videos (in the making!) and working out cool algorithms to suggest lessons and learning plans. Member Deleted suggested an iPhone/iPad app (also coming). Once again be sure to check out http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=34315 with all the entries!

Finally I want to say that I think the development of GMC is an amazing journey - and we wouldn't be anything without all the suggestions and feedback that keep coming from you guys.

My goal for the future is to be able increase the development pace so that we don't have this huge queue of awesome ideas waiting. However I try to tell myself when I get frustrated about new features coming to slowly, that this stuff is so new to all of us - if we had the option to do it all at once it would probably end up really bad.

So in some way I think part of GMC's charm is that it's still a web site in the making - it is completely different now compared to http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/wiki/index.php/GMC_Museum - and my prediction is that the coming three years we will see an even greater development.

Now let's get back to fishing...ehrm I mean practicing wink.gif

Posted by: MickeM May 25 2010, 11:06 AM

Contragtulations guys, good suggestions! biggrin.gif

Posted by: zen May 25 2010, 11:14 AM

This is great. All amazing ideas.. Can't wait for them to be implemented Kris.

Out of my ideas, my favorite was of http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=34315&view=findpost&p=474163 .. smile.gif .. What are your thoughts on that? smile.gif


Posted by: Kristofer Dahl May 25 2010, 11:23 AM

QUOTE (zen @ May 25 2010, 12:14 PM) *
This is great. All amazing ideas.. Can't wait for them to be implemented Kris.

Out of my ideas, my favorite was of http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=34315&view=findpost&p=474163 .. smile.gif .. What are your thoughts on that? smile.gif


I think it's a cool idea. The first step must be to start building GMC widgets/tools (as suggested by others as well).

The coolest would be if we could have a second life style jam/theory room of course! =)

Posted by: ruben_mcn May 25 2010, 11:27 AM

Congrats Guys .. smile.gif

Will we have to pay extra for MTP ?? sad.gif


Posted by: zen May 25 2010, 11:30 AM

QUOTE (ruben_mcn @ May 25 2010, 08:27 PM) *
Will we have to pay extra for MTP ?? sad.gif


Hmm, good question unsure.gif

Posted by: Pedja Simovic May 25 2010, 11:44 AM

Congratulations to the winners but also to all the other members who participated in the competition. I think there were many great ideas and I can see GMC development team having tons of work in future smile.gif

Posted by: maharzan May 25 2010, 12:03 PM

Congratulations once again all. It would be great to have a list of ideas being implemented on a 'to do' section or something apart from these ideas (if any).

Posted by: Fran May 25 2010, 01:03 PM

Congrats guys, this competition certainly brought loads of new exciting ideas, which I'm sure will serve to make GMC even better smile.gif

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn May 25 2010, 01:20 PM

Excellent ideas - I am looking forward to seeing how these turn out!

Prizes will be sent out soon smile.gif

EDIT: Forgot to say, can I have real names and addresses form the winners please - just PM me!

(Zak, I know you have won prizes before but I didn't keep your address)

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 25 2010, 02:16 PM

QUOTE (Kristofer Dahl @ May 25 2010, 12:23 PM) *
The coolest would be if we could have a second life style jam/theory room of course! =)



That can happen very soon, and it would be revolutionary for music teaching smile.gif

Posted by: skennington May 25 2010, 02:54 PM

congrats to all you guys and another big thank you to all that made suggestions. One of the many reasons that this website feels like home to so many of us.. cool.gif

Posted by: Adrian Figallo May 25 2010, 04:57 PM

congrats guys!!
and YAY iphone app smile.gif

Posted by: Gitarrero May 25 2010, 05:46 PM

Congrats man, great suggestions! Wonder how the new MTP will be like!

Posted by: Sollesnes May 25 2010, 06:33 PM

Congratulations! biggrin.gif

Posted by: thefireball May 25 2010, 10:53 PM

Awesome results! I'm excited about the new implementations. I just hope nothing will cost more or something.

Posted by: kaznie_NL May 28 2010, 08:33 PM

QUOTE (Kristofer Dahl @ May 25 2010, 12:01 PM) *
* Kaznie also suggested we move the sign up link to a more prominent spot on the website. Ultimately this goes down to how we want to prioritize with the few pixels we have got to our disposal - a little experimentation with this is a cool idea however. Perhaps we could even do it so that logged in members aren't affected/don't see it.

Thanks everyone for voting! and thanks GMC of course for the cool prizes wink.gif

Kris, if I may, isn't your main goal (at the end of the day) to make some money? And therefore, the pixels that make you some money should always be at the top of your priority list! At least that would be my view (keep I'm mind there's a reason I haven't reacted on the Marketing Director Needed advert laugh.gif )

If I see these cool entries with Kris comment saying something like "we are working on that already", then I'm excited already wink.gif

Kaz

Posted by: Lian Gerbino May 29 2010, 05:14 PM

congrats guys, great suggestions indeed! wink.gif

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic May 30 2010, 05:18 PM

Wow, when I check out the GMC how it looked 3 years ago, it definitely shows just how much work has been done, incredible! smile.gif

This site is building all the time, but it's probably similar as with guitar. We don't notice it in short-term periods, but when you look back - OMG! biggrin.gif

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic May 30 2010, 05:35 PM

Congrats everyone and I am as others very excited to site updates! smile.gif
Its really amazing to see how GMC grows from day to day! smile.gif

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl May 31 2010, 11:19 AM

QUOTE (kaznie_NL @ May 28 2010, 09:33 PM) *
Kris, if I may, isn't your main goal (at the end of the day) to make some money? And therefore, the pixels that make you some money should always be at the top of your priority list! At least that would be my view (keep I'm mind there's a reason I haven't reacted on the Marketing Director Needed advert laugh.gif )


No my main goal is not to make money. If that had been the case I would have put down the development of GMC a long time ago. That would also give me time to actively pursue my dreams of a musical career (and all the other things in life I have sacrificed for GMC). This site exists because I work day and night with tasks that normally require a whole team. If GMC where to have a whole web team we would need venture capital - with requirements of fast growth - which would likely shatter much of the atmosphere we have built. (Henrik and his team can only work a fraction of their time with GMC stuff because of budget restrictions)

The reason I keep GMC alive is because I believe that what we have here is unique and goes way beyond your average "learn to play guitar in 30 days" site. The biggest evidence of this is what is happening in our community - in here I have developed my personality as a human being and musician more than I ever could have in real life. I believe that in here lies the seed to something good and big. This seed will not grow with money but with time and experience. This is an old truth which can be applied to anything in life - but for some reason forgotten among web entrepreneurs.

Of course we need to keep a close eye on our $ balance which is one of the reason the mtp program is being revised. But if I have the choice between $ and pixels I will go for the later any time.

Cool discussion by the way! smile.gif

Posted by: Fran May 31 2010, 12:11 PM

QUOTE (Ivan Milenkovic @ May 30 2010, 06:18 PM) *
This site is building all the time, but it's probably similar as with guitar. We don't notice it in short-term periods, but when you look back - OMG! biggrin.gif


So true Ivan smile.gif


QUOTE (Kristofer Dahl @ May 31 2010, 12:19 PM) *
... The biggest evidence of this is what is happening in our community - in here I have developed my personality as a human being and musician more than I ever could have in real life. I believe that in here lies the seed to something good and big. This seed will not grow with money but with time and experience...


Nice thoughts there Kris, I thoroughly agree smile.gif

Posted by: maharzan May 31 2010, 12:17 PM

I wish I could make some money from my guitar playing and photography.. have spend tonnes.. smile.gif Somethings are just better when you want to do it really seriously for nothing.. smile.gif in search of happiness I guess.

Posted by: Daniel Realpe Jul 10 2010, 08:27 PM

all great ideas!

we should do a lot of licks of the day that would keep many GMC:ers busy for a while, kind of like those "Betcha can't play this" but in all levels

Posted by: emirb Aug 12 2010, 02:58 PM

QUOTE (Daniel Realpe @ Jul 10 2010, 09:27 PM) *
all great ideas!

we should do a lot of licks of the day that would keep many GMC:ers busy for a while, kind of like those "Betcha can't play this" but in all levels


Great idea Daniel! This things are essential in every learning process if you are serious about it. This is well known and easily recognized from any educational training such as colleges/universities/high schools etc.. You get a degree which is a carrot on the short run and for instance recognition of your achievements later on in life when you look for jobs etc (long run). This is why I think REC program is no.2 best thing with GMC (1st to be lessons of course smile.gif ). It is so essential that you never can stop pointing it out. You learn how to play, how to record it, how to share it with other people, you get feedback, critic - and with help of everything named you improve on all levels at all time. Just having lessons available is nothing much than youtube with tabs. REC (and MTP RiP smile.gif ) are/were the GLUE that connects everything together into one successful package. Oh well, didn't want to write this much about it smile.gif but most important things/activities involving students/instructors together is things that will make (..remain?) GMC best place on the web for learning guitar (well not just learning but you know what I mean).


Posted by: Azzaboi Aug 12 2010, 09:33 PM

Congratz guys! smile.gif

QUOTE
The reason I keep GMC alive is because I believe that what we have here is unique and goes way beyond your average "learn to play guitar in 30 days" site...


So true Kristofer! It takes a lot longer than 30 days to learn the guitar being here! laugh.gif
You can learn the guitar in one day... master it in a lifetime!

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