Was curious to get an email invitation to join the site www.brassvibe.com a couple of days ago. The email sells it pretty well: plus some other stuff. So is anyone using this? Is it worthwhile? A new addition to the marketplace, or just something not so different that might have the effect of splitting up the online brass band community by spreading us across different sites? And who's running it? My first reaction is that it looks like it has some interesting features, but selling itself as "The UK's brass band community" is a bit weird - because that's this site...
"Facebook for brass" ??? I think Facebook ideally caters for linking friends in the banding world. TMP has an advantage over this format as all topics and discussions are in the public domain and doesn't even require membership for viewing.
It's certainly user friendly and very easy to add Events, ask for Deps etc. I think there is always room for more Brass based sites.
I got an email too, but don't want to say who I think is running is becuase I could be wrong. Havnt got round to looking at the site yet though
Doesn't look like it's from here as your contact details don't include you email address (... I've just checked your profile).
Oh gosh! I joined up thinking it was a well constructed site and that any brass band sites add to the growth of the banding culture. Is the consensus that this is a bogus/subversive/vindictive element in the banding world?
By 'this site' I presume you are talking about tMP? You're right, you will receive a confirmation email as part of the registration process, but you can choose not to show your email on your public profile (which on your account you can't). The Brass Vibe site has nothing to do with tMP and we haven't provided any email addresses to them or any other website.
I've just had a quick scan on Facebook and I notice that a number of my banding friends have their email address shown in their profile (including me until about two minutes ago!) - perhaps this is where they are getting email addresses from?
I honestly think the email addresses are being extracted from the TMP data base, but by whom and how, I have no clue. My own email address could have easily been obtained by linking to the Brytfor web site, but there are others who have been contacted that do not show in their profile, either their email address or the name of the band with which they are associated. Perhaps some investigation is called for.
That's impossible unless they are hacking our database. Of course, we will be (and are) looking into this possibility, but its much more likely that whoever is behind this Brass Vibe website has spent a couple of hours digging around on Facebook, or A.N.Other site(s) where people's email addresses are publicly viewable. I'm getting the feeling that several people here think the site is somehow sinister. Do you know something we don't?
I wasn't implying that it was anything sinister when I started the thread! Interesting to see that some people do see sinisterness. For the record, the email address I was contacted on is not the one that I used to register here, and I didn't start the thread with the intention of talking about the ethics of emailing people out of the blue, offering them something that they might like. The intention was to talk about how such a site might both complement and inadvertently compete with this one.
Ian I am sorry, but I am not totally convinced that Facebook or other web sites are producing the email addresses contacted by Brass Vibe; however it is just my own personal opinion. Sinister? Perhaps not so, but I was not too happy with the "feel" of their web site, and could not see any reason to join a community which in some areas appears to be replicating the same information available on the TMP site. Then there is the question: who is actually running the site? Perhaps they may reveal their identity upon reading this thread! Barry
