Archive Article - Summer 2000

Index

Exclusive Interview with MusicalOnline.com: Why MusicalOnline?

The development of the World Wide Web has increased the popularity of the Internet among those involved in art and art research. Therefore, the Web has quickly become a sprawling, confusing place - full of text and visual material, but with no central indexing system. Finding what is wanted or needed becomes more complex and time consuming as the number of sites expands globally. We feel that there is need for a portal site or web directory that characterizes and organizes the extensive classical music information in cyberspace. And this was our primary goal for developing a web portal, MusicalOnline.com. Individuals and organizations concerned with classical music community and maintain Web sites for many purposes: to inform and share their expertise or databases with others, to communicate material to specific audiences, to answer frequently asked questions, or, more often, to advertise, sell, or promote something - exhibitions, objects for sale, or special points of view. Some Internet sites are scholarly in nature, created by specialists; others are the work of amateurs or entrepreneurs, often technicians who know more about computers than a special field, such as Performing arts. To be successful at finding pertinent data, it is important to know what can and cannot be located on this information highway and, most important, how to appraise, evaluate, review its worth, and use the material found in the Web. Too often, individuals have been led to believe that all their information requirements will be met online -- yet what they seek may never be available on the Internet. And because some information on the Web can be superficial, temporary, incomplete, or even wrong, users need to be able to judge its value. In response, MusicalOnline directory for Classical music offers collective classical music / work related websites that were carefully screened by the MusicalOnline committee with material from other information formats to produce quality research result. So far, MusicalOnline has received overwhelming number of praises from the visitors all over the world. Since its opening in summer 1998, the number of visitors has increased tremendously. Today MusicalOnline is viewed by 3000+ a day. We continue to believe that the creation of this portal will help classical music community to come together and be able to connect to one another and be a part of their classical music information mining field on the Web. If any of the readers wish to make suggestions, we are open to hear all. For more information and to contact - musicalonline@usa.com