As in many industries, we the consumers of musical instruments and software have a symbiotic relationship with the manufacturers of keyboards/software/sound systems, etc. They want us to buy their product and we want them to create products that we want to buy. They work on determining what features we might want and we want them to provide us with a wealth of information about their products (features, specs, reviews, pictures, videos, demos, ...) so we can determine what will work best for our particular needs. They want to talk to us, we want to ask questions and be listened to.

I am in full support of manufacturers participating in a BBS forum like Synthzone by responding to posts about their product as a valuable resource of accurate information about their product and by starting their own posts to provide new information on their product. All the related discussion that ensues is of great value. The Synthzone BBS forum is, and should continue to be, a conduit between the manufacturers and the consumers.

All that being said, I am getting a little frustrated lately with how some people on Synthzone that have some kind of professional affiliation with a manufacturer feel free to interject an infomercial about their product, whenever they see the opportunity, in the middle of a post about another topic or discussion about another manufacturer's product. It's the "look at me too, look what I can do" insert that I am finding to be a distraction. We all know you exist, we are just not talking about you at this moment. These kinds of entries often causes the post to go off in another direction. Synthzone, like other BBS forums, can have an ADD (attention deficient disorder) quality to it as posts can go off on many tangents. Many times valuable conversations result in the freeform flow of ideas. Other times, the conversations degrade into playgroundesque brawls.

IMHO, I would like to request that manufacturers stop using the middle of someone else’s post on Synthzone as a marketing opportunity. I would like to extend this to people who may not have a professional affiliation but have a very strong allegiance to a particular manufacturer’s product. However, I might be asking too much for people to attenuate their personal enthusiasm. Although, it sure would help. I do not think my request is an unreasonable request for those who have a professional affiliation. I have purposely not mentioned any particular manufacturer by name as my request is equally to them all.

I wanted to give my opinion on this issue and invite others to comments.

[This message has been edited by RobertG (edited 04-10-2007).]

To be honest, Robert, I don't mind the manufacturers interjecting in non specific threads, hell, we do it ourselves all the time! But what I WOULD like to see is a 'Manufacturer' or 'Dealer' tag to their names.

We deserve the right, as print articles do, that when something is posted by a dealer or rep or manufacturer, that it be clearly labeled as such. You all see the little 'Advertisement' label in magazines, even for things that LOOK like a regular article.

We deserve to have the knowledge of whether information and opinion being posted is free of commercial pressures or not.

Diki: I also don't mind vendor contribution on non-specific threads. It's the hijacking of specific threads about other products that bugs me.

Sure, we get off topic all the time. Doesn't mean we can't do better. Like encouraging people to start a new thread instead of completely going to a new topic within the same thread.

I don't think the vendors have been deceptive at all in identifying their relationship. However, Your tag idea is great, something like member-vendor. Something for Nigel to ponder if it is possible/desireable.

I really don't like solicitations here either. We all agreed to use the "For Sale" section for our own gear - I think the manufacturers should too.

Pertinant comentary on features are always welcome, but sales pitches ........ naw.

Agreed!

I agree wholeheartedly.

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I'll order two. One for the house, and one to take to the gig....

Maybe a bit OT but...

I would not be surprized if OEMs had 1 or 2 'users'
on these boards we just don't know it.

In other areas (A/V) its done all the time!

I hope they have several users on this board to get unjaded input on their products and competitors products. Even if they just lurk and never respond. It would be of value to us all.

I'm glad to see others agree as to reducing the infomercials. Now it's up to us to respectfully let vendors know in the future if they step over the line.

Robert,

I don't know who you are refering to in this sentence:

"I would like to extend this to people who may not have a professional affiliation but have a very strong allegiance to a particular manufacturer’s product."

Personally I think that this forum would be very boring if we could not speak passionately about the keyboards we own ourself. This forum is the only place I know where you can discuss and compare arrangers from many different manufacturers. I hope it can stay that way.

Kind regards,
Tommy (Korg fan)