2008: Highlights from Musicnotes.com

Whew! We’re already a few weeks into 2009, and it’s only just now starting to sink in.  2008 was a tremendous year for us at Musicnotes and, as usual, the holiday season was extraordinarily hectic (in that good kind of way, though).  Now that I’ve had a chance to finally take a step back and catch my breath, I’ve also had a chance to take a good, long look at everything that happened in 2008 – and there was a lot.  So much so, that there’s no way I could do everything justice.  There were quite a few highlights though, and if you haven’t been keeping a close eye on Musicnotes lately, I’ve put together a little list of the big ones.

So here we have it: some of the biggest news from Musicnotes.com in 2008 (in no particular order):

New Publishers:
2008 saw quite a few publishers sign up to offer their music in our downloadable sheet music format.  While there were too many to all mention here, some of the highlights include MPL (Paul McCartney’s publishing company), Windswept and Trio, Faber Music Publishing (one of England’s largest and most-respected publishers) and EMI Music Publishing.

Guitar Guru Expands to Support Mac:
In what was surely the biggest news for our guitar-playing Mac users, 2008 also saw our popular Guitar Guru interactive guitar teaching software make its debut on the Mac platform. This, along with a slick new interface designed specifically for the Mac release opened up the doors for literally millions more people to learn to play their favorite songs on guitar easier than ever before.

Free, Legal Guitar, Bass and Drum Tabs at MXTabs.net:
One of the biggest projects we undertook here at Musicnotes in 2008 was the re-launch of the online user-generated guitar, bass and drum tab community, MXTabs.net as the world’s first free and legal service of its kind.  The site launched in a public beta in early 2008, and was officially unleashed on the public on July 1, 2008. The launch not only included a full redesign based on the feedback of the beta community, but an avalanche of newly licensed tabs from publishers including Alfred (Warner/Chappell), Sony, Universal, Famous, BUG, Peermusic and thousands of other publishers.  Taylor Guitars also joined in the excitement and gave away four of their guitars as part of the launch celebration.

Industry Acclaim for Musicnotes:
While we’re not keen on tooting our own horn (we leave that to the trumpet players), we are proud of the fact that in 2008 we were once again highlighted in Internet Retailer Magazine as one of the Top 500 Internet Retail Sites, and even more proud that this past December they chose us as one of the Hot 100 Retail Web Sites for 2009.

Awesome Support from You:
I’m personally not one to hand out thanks unless it’s due, which is why I am extraordinarly thankful for all of you. 2008 was another record-breaking year for us, in terms of sales, new content added, new customers added, and just about every other thing you could imagine. The reason we’ve been able to achieve this is because of the support from you, our customers.

Everything we do here at Musicnotes is done with the customer in mind first. For this reason I’m even more excited for what we have planned for 2009, as we’re already underway with several projects that are geared exclusively toward further improving your experience here at Musicnotes.  It’s too early for us to mention what’s coming, but it’s going to be good.

… and there I go tooting my own horn again. Oh yeah, I forgot… I am a trumpet player.