Development of Bluegrass Nation, IBMA’s forthcoming web community for bluegrass artists, businesses and fans, kicked into high gear before Christmas, and we're getting set to
announce a nation-wide logo contest for Bluegrass Nation through a company called Creative Allies.
After an exhaustive (and exhausting) search, IBMA’s Bluegrass Nation team chose Charlottesville, Va. web developer Ryan DeRose to lead coding of this new social network and nerve center for bluegrass music news, media and information. DeRose came to IBMA’s attention after developing an innovative, socially wired website for the Infamous Stringdusters. He’s part of a dynamic independent music sector doing great things out of the Virginia college town.
DeRose is working closely with IBMA’s Bluegrass Nation “brain trust,” spearheaded by media veteran Craig Havighurst, journalist/songwriter Jon Weisberger, musician and web master Matt Munsey, attorney Stephanie Taylor and IBMA staff. Despite some setbacks in 2011, design of the system’s architecture and member usability is now well under way, with hopes for a beta launch this winter and full implementation this spring.
The logo contest will take place in the month of January, using the crowd-sourced power of Creative Allies. Graphic designers from inside and outside the bluegrass community will compete to create a logo that that best reflects the past, present and future of bluegrass music, and the IBMA team is excited to see what the nation’s best minds come up with. Here’s the link.
Bluegrass Nation will consolidate news, reviews, features, videos, photos and other information generated by the bluegrass community, and spotlight great content with links to the sites that have for many years been reporting and sharing bluegrass music. Bluegrass Nation will be seamlessly connected to Facebook and Twitter, and BN members will be able to customize the ways they receive and share information. Bottom line—Bluegrass Nation will be the online place to discover and share great music, news and just shoot the cyber breeze with other folks in the bluegrass community, while attracting new fans for the music along the way.
IBMA will curate and spotlight content from around the web on Bluegrass Nation, but the site and its on-line tools will chiefly be built and populated by its members. It will be a great landing page for folks new to bluegrass music trying to figure it out. It will seek to serve lovers of bluegrass
tradition as well as those who value the evolution of the music and its modern offshoots.
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