Mandolin Cafe Blog

I've started this theme about the Classifieds because,well, they're such an interesting part of this site. Unlike the message board which I jokingly refer to as the Borg Collective--I can hear all the voices--the Classifieds are a silent operation that's discussed little, mostly misunderstood, and suffers from time to time from anecdotal observations not backed up by fact or hard numbers. But hey, it's just talk, and it's all good .

"All of the action on the Mandolin Cafe is on the message board."

The Classifieds generate twice the total number of page views as the message board. You read that right, double. Many of those folks posting and replying there will never make a peep on the message board. The Cafe home page also out-performs the message board in total page views. The headphones are on for the Classifieds and the Cafe home page, and off for the message board. It's all good, there's nothing wrong with this.

Is this really important to point out? Not particularly, but it makes a point I've always held that a lot of times what's really important and going on in the mandolin world is what's not discussed out here. There's the real story.

Oh, and in case you ever wondered, the Classifieds were not my idea. I apologize for not remembering the gentleman that I had a long discussion with and he finally talked me into it--I only remember he was a senior VP at Oracle. At the time I remembered thinking, "classifieds, who'd every use THAT!?"

And, happy belated 10th birthday to the Classifieds, launched November 26, 1998.