Electric Guitar Buying Guide

Everywhere you go on the Internet today, you'll hear about this "social" Web site and that "social" app. What they mostly mean is that you can

• share your writings/pictures/videos/Web clips with your friends and
• rate Web sites/services/products so that your friends can benefit from your experience

That's great, as far as it goes. Of course, some social sites and services go far beyond that, but that still leaves 99,980 social projects that are just conduits for you to dispense your wisdom to the world. It seems to me that the ultimate potential for social sites and services is to make us better in some very real way - smarter, healthier, wealthier, kinder, gentler, greener - really BETTER. And I just don't think that Twitter does that.

There is, however, a community that has been doing "social" since the Internet came out of the closet in the early 90's. It's the music community, possibly best exemplified by the incredibly well-developed guitar community. You'll notice that all of the vibrant online guitar sites, including the instrument manufacturers, have healthy community sections as integral parts of their Web sites. These communities contain all of the typical social elements: sales advice/recommendations/user reviews, product support, problem resolution, discussion of favorite musicians/instruments/albums/songs, and so forth. I mean, how could they not?

But what propels the guitar social network beyond almost anything else I've ever seen (the computer programmer/Web designer community is similar) is the absolute commitment toward making each other BETTER - better guitarists, better musicians, better songwriters, better listeners, better luthiers, better artists... It's frankly amazing and an inspiration to anyone who cares about realizing the full potential of the Social Web. So get a guitar and join some of these communities. It doesn't matter if you're playing Kumbaya or Michael Angelo Batio (the best guitarist in the world? See for yourself!), you'll get better as a guitarist and you'll see what the Social Web can really do.