Life

Social network for guitar lovers goes live

15.12.2009
A new online social network aimed at guitar lovers and collectors has gone live.

www.dbtwang.com aims to become the world’s largest online guitar database where collectors and guitar lovers globally can interact, but also protect their guitars and share their history.

By logging onto dbtwang, guitar lovers can view individual profiles of guitars with details of their history and an online guitar photo gallery where they can show off their prized possessions and check out what other collectors have.

Users also have the ability to ‘follow a guitar’ and converse with its owner.

The website so far registered over 1,000 guitar enthusiasts. The majority of registered users are based in the US (42pc) and the UK (40pc), with the remaining 18pc made up of users from Ireland, the rest of Europe and Asia.

The site is hoping to increase that membership to over 10,000 users worldwide over the next six months.

According to dbTwang Chief Executive Keith Bohanna, the new network is the first of its kind: “Up until now, passionate guitar fans have had very limited access to their peers through online forums. www.dbtwang.com will offer them a new, complete social and interactive experience where they can share details of their collections, but also protect their instruments.

“We aim to have over four million dbTwang members worldwide by 2015. By that time dbTwang will be the world’s No 1 online guitar database where registered users can check up an instrument’s history and credentials before investing in it,” he added.

The market for vintage guitars is a thriving one, Bohanna said. According to guide prices, a ’54 Fender Stratocaster would set you back between $55,000 and $100,000, while a ’58 single-cutaway Gibson Les Paul Junior would have a range of between $7,000 and $13,000.

dbTwang will offer basic services free of charge but does intend to offer a premium service with a small charge for use of exclusive services including a number of ways to protect these great instruments.

“We're currently in talks with a number of established guitar businesses and individuals with regard to providing this protection and partnerships with these companies can be expected in January 2010,” Bohanna added.