I have been using online communities for a prolonged period of time. Ever since discovering Youtube, the internet has become an intricate part of my upbringing. As a musician, a lot of the online communities I use are music related.
- Ultimate Guitar– This website is an online community to discuss guitar and music related content. While this site is used for learning songs on guitar, I use this website more for its articles and the ability to discuss among other music fans. The website puts up questions for discussion, and then posts articles based on those discussions. It is a relaxed website that gives us music lovers the chance to discuss and voice our opinions.
- Reverbnation– This site is important as it is a way of connecting different musicians together. Think of it as individual music pages linked together with music charts and discussion forums. I haven’t used this page as much in recent times due to the rise in popularity of Facebook, however a few years ago this page was important to voice your music to an online community.
- Guitar World– Here we are again with guitar as the focus! This website is great for discovering new music, or old stuff I haven’t seen before. They post top 10s that are generally related to guitar. However, this site doesn’t have as strong a community, but the content is important to me growing as a musician.
- IPHYB– I Probably Hate Your Band is more of a fun page, with music reviews. What I like about this page is how brutally honest they are with their reviews. One of my old bands got a real good grilling on this page! They also have intimate discussions with fans of the page, but usually it is built up with hate comments and swearing!
- Youtube– A bit broad on this one, but to me personally Youtube is the most important online community. I watch Youtube videos everyday, keeping up to date with my subscriptions. Some Youtube channels have great interaction with their fanbase, such as Rock it Out Blog, Jared Dines, Ryan ‘Fluff’ Bruce, etc. Some have bad interaction, in the form of disabling comments. But all in all, Youtube is king for me in online communities.
Declan Zane 