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GMC Forum _ GMC site feedback & suggestions _ Tip For Gmc
Posted by: ztevie Jan 29 2009, 03:12 PM
Hi!
I recently went to China, and spent a few weeks there. I noticed a few things that could be a goldmine for GMC, you have many, many potential members there. I see on the GMC location map that noone from Asia have registered...
Fact 1: Cities in China have well developed internet possibilities. I have visited a few familys there and they all had a computer and internet with between 1-10 mB connection. If you have a phone jack, you can get hi-speed adsl there. They are pretty well developed in this area.
Fact 2: Guitar is an increasingly popular activity among young people there. I was in China a few years ago, visited a music shop in Zhuhai. Then there were only two acoustics hanging on the wall, the rest was pianos and local intruments. This year, they had 20 or more guitars. When asked, they said that it's getting very popular to play guitar, especially electric guitar is wanted by many younger guys. Also, english is taught in school nowadays, many young speak fairly good english.
Fact 3: I surfed the internet every day, could not open GMC from any computer, neither in peoples homes, or at internet cafees. Every site I usually visit had no problems whatsoever, only GMC... I know China have this Great Firewall, as they call it, where they ban some sites that does not fit into the governments thought of unharmful websites. GMC could not be one of them, I've seen people surfing to pornsites in those internet cafees...
You see the dilemma and the potential here? I think GMC should find out why their site can not be opened in China. I think it has something to do with the webhost you use? Wasn't there a problem last year, where we in Europe couldn't reach the site due to webhost closing traffic to Europe? Could it be closed to China now aswell? If so, I think you should find another host...
You have several million of potential new members here! Young people in the cities there are very modern, they've adopted a capitalistic lifestyle, with commercial everywhere, they eat at PIzza Hut and McD. They surf the internet, they hear new music every day. They listen to metal, rock, pop... And... they want to play instruments like the western rockbands do.
Make no mistake about it, a site like this would be huge in China, if it gets known it is possible to join that is.
By the way, do you have any chinese members at all? From Hong Kong maybe?
EDIT: Imagine some commercial on chinese national tv, where you have some cool riffing, announcing the website.. Cool, huh? It would be well invested money
If you need to know more, just ask, I have in-depth connections in China... 
Posted by: Nighthawk1 Jan 29 2009, 03:19 PM
This is an interesting statement, didn't realise that there were no Asian members, just that the majority are from Eastern Europe I guess. Maybe another reason is that Asians are not that familiar with English enough, are they? I don't know....interesting point there though
Posted by: OrganisedConfusion Jan 29 2009, 03:30 PM
There are a few members from Asia but not many. Not enough people from Asian and African continents 
Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Jan 29 2009, 03:35 PM
This is a very good insight..I don't see why people can't access GMC from China ?? What's the problem ?
Posted by: Toni Suominen Jan 29 2009, 03:42 PM
Hmm... it's odd that people can't open GMC in China. But thanks for the heads-up dude, this is really interesting.
Posted by: ztevie Jan 29 2009, 03:49 PM
I don't know if the server was down excactly at the times I tried, but what is the chance that happening several times in 3 weeks? I also googled, and GMC came up in the result, but link wouldn't work...
GMC's webhost had issues with european companies last year, they closed the line to europe until they had settled an agreement on payment and so forth. So my guess is company in China who have the rights to internet access or something just wouldn't pay a fee, so they just closed traffic to China? It's very easy to do, since IP-numbers have prefixes for each country(i I remmeber correctly?)...
I don't know, should be easy enough to find out for the GMC-people responsible for dealing with their webhost?
Posted by: jer Jan 29 2009, 04:08 PM
Hilarious.
The Great FireWall of China
Posted by: Fran Jan 29 2009, 04:18 PM
The Great FireWall of China
Interesting idea
Posted by: tonymiro Jan 29 2009, 04:37 PM
The issue may not be with GMC's webhost since all internet traffic in China is filtered by the Chinese Government. In common with some governments the Chinese Government blocks access to sites which have content that they wish censored. Some individuals in China dodge this by using proxies but the Chinese Government has been clamping down on this as well. Take a look at http://opennet.net/research/regions/asia for more information.
Researchers at Harvard compiled a very long list of sites banned a few years ago. Their list is out of date now because of the clampdown on proxies but it included the BBC, Amnesty International, Columbia University, MIT, New York Times, IBM...
Interesting idea though. If GMC wasn't filtered out and could access the market it might require some localisation - ie language translation. I can just see Kris shouting out 'Are you ready?!' in Mandarin 
.
Cheers,
Tony
Posted by: ztevie Jan 29 2009, 05:14 PM
I can't imagine they block GMC, and let everything else I surfed to untouched?
I went to all my regular bookmarks, including guitar forum and sites in US and Europe, I watched Youtube, watched all sorts of news, both swedish, european and american. I downloaded a musicmovie a friend just got ready...
In short, I did everything I do from home, and ONLY GMC didn't work...
I mean, this must be one of the cleanest(regarding language, behaviour and content) forum in the entire world? Only reason they might firewall it, is if they don't like sweep picking, or legato runs?
Posted by: tonymiro Jan 29 2009, 05:22 PM
I agree filtering GMC out seems far fetched ztevie but you just never know. Maybe they're scared of our GMC world domination plan .
Posted by: utak3r Jan 29 2009, 07:03 PM
Another problem with chinese people is the payment - it may be that it's blocked....
I do know some Asians speaking English, although in more technical areas - but still there's a very little percentage of them joining European or American forum boards - they have their own ones... most of the active Asians are from America
Posted by: ztevie Jan 29 2009, 07:09 PM
THey don't use international creditcards. They have their own, which won't work internationally, but money transfer is possible. I have had money sent from China direct to my account here in Sweden, no problems. Took 2 days for money to arrive. Don't know about Paypal though..
They have a maximum amount of sending money to other country, I think it was $50.000. ANyway, these things are not impossible to solve, regarding the profit that can be made, it's well worth some effort to fix it.
GMC could open an office in China, I volunteer for that position, haha...
EDIT: Oh, just remembered, I ordered a lamp for my TV from Shanghai a couple of years ago, and that guy had Paypal, so it shouldn't be a problem... The stuff were actually sent from hanghai also, so it was the real deal...
Posted by: Muris Varajic Jan 29 2009, 07:39 PM
Pretty interesting ztevie!!
Lets hear Kris's thoughts on this issue.
Posted by: Wabba Jan 29 2009, 07:49 PM
Interesting idea ztevie.
I laughed to that "Great Firewall of China" -thing too
Posted by: David Wallimann Jan 29 2009, 07:58 PM
Wow, that is interesting.
That would possibly double or triple the current number of users.
Wow!
Posted by: berko Jan 29 2009, 08:00 PM
Interesting thread for sure! Never heard about the Great Firewall of China... 
Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Jan 29 2009, 10:14 PM
Yes there is a lot of possibilities both for getting new instructors and new members on board. Some internet marketing on Chinese sites could do the trick I suppose.
Posted by: Toni Suominen Jan 30 2009, 12:58 AM
.Haha, that would be awesome
Posted by: ztevie Jan 30 2009, 07:02 AM
.Maybe something like: 是您准备好
Posted by: ztevie Jan 30 2009, 08:16 AM
Yep, Paypal exists in China: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/general/CNPayPalComparison-outside
Posted by: Unleash-The-Shred Jan 30 2009, 08:43 AM
Weird, I wonder why that is?
Posted by: Canis Jan 31 2009, 11:33 PM
.They should be scared... We've got Muris!
Posted by: Mrblomme Feb 2 2009, 12:10 AM
Muris was a ninja in his young days so that'll be the reason!
Posted by: Oxac Feb 2 2009, 04:36 PM
Ninjuris and Guitar tube.. China watch out!
Posted by: Muris Varajic Feb 22 2009, 11:53 AM
Posted by: Alexiaden93 Jul 2 2009, 09:51 AM
Some very wise words, ztevie ! I'm sure this website could develop greatly with at least a few more thousand members (imagine what a million could do !), and the more, the merrier, I guess ! More members = more instructors to answer the demand maybe thanks to higher payment, again thanks to a superior constant income from monthly membership payment... Imagine the possibilities !
But first, strike down the Great Firewall of China !
Posted by: Gerardo Siere Jul 2 2009, 07:25 PM
.Shhh... that's secret man.
Posted by: Zsolt Galambos Jul 14 2009, 10:14 PM
Interestin topic man! Can't wait Kris' respond....
Ninjuris rules
Posted by: Raph Jul 27 2009, 05:20 PM
I'm Asian...
Not Chinese though...
I'm probably the few Asians on GMC...
Posted by: Vasilije Vukmirovic Jul 27 2009, 11:46 PM
I think that in Japan guitar is incredibly popular, they have few fusion bands that are really....they play in front of 2000 people audiences! GMC will continue to grow that is for sure!
Posted by: Canis Jul 28 2009, 12:02 AM
I can't help to see the worst-case scenario in this:
If GMC were to advertise in China, and get thousands of new members in a heartbeat.... I dare to say that I think the fine, tight community we have now would be broken.
Posted by: Emir Hot Jul 28 2009, 12:14 AM
I really never thought that website like this could be blocked in some country. And now when I think I realise that there are actually no Chinese members. I am sure the amount of subscribers would be much higher. Just think why that guy won Guitar Idol
Posted by: Pedja Simovic Jul 31 2009, 01:49 PM
I totally agree with Emir
I think we would all have to learn Chinese sooner or later because there would be too many of native speakers from China
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