Welcome to the WebOnlyPiano blog! We have been going through a re-design of our website since September 2008, and finally are on the right path, and right platform for us.
We certainly appreciate the patience, input and loyalty of our many customers as we work through the various issues encountered, and welcome all of the new customers that we meet each week. To all of you: please continue to communicate your questions and comments to us (eventually) through this blog/comments and/or our Customer Service email: Customer.Service@webonlypiano.com
We intend to use our blog to communicate our purpose and concepts to all of you, and to garner your input as well.
First, perhaps a little background on this rebuild of our website.
Since our inception, WebOnlyPiano’s main purpose was to offer a superlative product line of player piano recordings directly to player piano owners. And, we developed the capability to offer our products in allthe player formats offered by the piano industry: Yamaha Disklavier, QRS Pianomation, PianoDisc and PianoForce. The reason for the name “WebOnly” is that we are a division of WebOnly Productions, LLC. WebOnly Productions was originally formed as a parent company for a boutique jazz record label, WebOnlyJazz.com. WebOnlyJazz is a regular audio-type record label with products only sold direct online to consumers.
Because we had been offering a few of our titles as licensed products to key player piano manufacturers, we were aware to the player market. But once we did a little market research and talked with some player piano owners, we realized immediately that this was an under-served market.
In fact, so underserved that there was no other organization producing discs for player piano systems other than the manufacturer of the piano! Hard to believe, but true.
So it didn’t take long for WebOnlyPiano to become a dominant provider of discs for player piano systems.
In addition, WebOnly always new that it was not practical to expect consistently strong representation from piano retailers throughout the country: generally piano stores don’t carry a large amount of discs, and player owners seem to enjoy ordering products from the comfort of their home or office.
Hence the name WebOnlyPiano. It simply reinforces the concept of getting these exciting products directly on the web.
Of course, WebOnlyPiano is fortunate to have a great “brick-and-mortar” dealer network of piano retailers throughout the country as well.
Well — finaly back to the rebuild of the website.
Since our launch in January 2006, we had been so busy creating our recorded product line, and so busy responding to the tremendous interest of the piano retail trade, we simply launched our direct-to-consumer website with a “temporary” offering that was to be replaced with something substantial in 30 to 60 days.
Two and one-half years later, we still had basically the same temporary website. And in that time, we learned a lot more about the player piano disc industry, and about our customer’s needs. We also kept searching for the right webmaster to lead the effort.
And as somtimes happens, we had been looking right past him all the time!
So we “re-discovered” our webmaster genius, Frank T. And all-of-a-sudden it was clear: put Frank in charge, and let him run with the ball.
His first move was a bit of a lateral one — and he dug in in September 2008 to do a “patch-up” of our site as it was, and try to make it a little more user-friendly. Of course, in the 2.5 years we had added many products, and many formats as well. But it was still confusing and totally inconsistent. But Frank got us through the holiday rush of 2008, and then began searching for the right new platform to launch the new site from.
We found it in February, and launched it around the end of March. And it still is a work in progress. But we now have a foundation to build on. We’re still experimenting with different ways to categorize products, based on how you, the customer, browse and shop. We’re adding features, such as (ultimately) clips of every album and track offered by WebOnlyPiano; photo galleries of events and recording sessions, information and tips on using your player piano; this blog, and more!
So, with this, our first blog entry, we thank you for your support and look forward to bringing you ever-more exciting discs, products and news that help you get the most out of your player piano system!