New Avid Branded DIGIDESIGN website feedback

[earthcorp]

Hi there,

This is intended to be read ideally by a Digidesign web related member of staff. I have emailed it to a few places via the new Avid site,
but I suspect it's going to get more audience participation here....

To Digidesign / Avid:

Just some (hopefully helpful) feedback on the new (AVID) website.

It's absolutely terrible and I feel several steps backward...
It feels like a generic corporate site template far removed from the vitality and lifeblood that is digidesign and it's customers.

Why did you not just take the previous Digi site and rebrand it AVID?
If you needed better navigation so be it, but as it is now, I feel this disruptive to your perceived momentum and profile as leading edge SPECIALIST company in pro audio.
To me this is reminiscent of the Logic post eMagic...now as Logic users (which I am no longer post eMagic) all users have is the very lacking in depth Apple company website - catch my drift?

So sorry if this comes across in any way negative. It's just my constructive hopefully helpful perspective

Best regards,

Robert

PS: If you feel the same way please email digidesign/avid at [email protected]
with your comments

[O.G. Killa]

the problem here is Avid is not a specialist in Pro Audio. they are a specialist in nonlinear video.

Audio is not their priority... video is. And the rebranded avid audio website "band-aid" is a tell-tale sign of that.

[necjamc]

Originally Posted by O.G. Killa

the problem here is Avid is not a specialist in Pro Audio. they are a specialist in nonlinear video.

Audio is not their priority... video is. And the rebranded avid audio website "band-aid" is a tell-tale sign of that.

I can't say this is true or not. But considering Avid has owned Digidesign and M-Audio for 15 years, I can't imagine a simple name change has completely destroyed their commitment to the professional audio community. If they have then their customers and their bottom line will be affected for sure. But considering all of the companies that Avid owns, do you believe Avid is the same Video Avid, or are they more a sum of all their parts, video, audio etc. I choose to hope for bright future with Avid. And time will tell. But Avid is a very big portion and Audio company as much as a video company. As long as they don't fire all the Audio guys anyway.

[netnoggin]

Originally Posted by O.G. Killa

the problem here is Avid is not a specialist in Pro Audio.

Add web design to that, apparently.

Actually, the web change is not even remotely on my opinion radar one way or the other. There seems to be some sort of perception going on by Avid that people are constantly hanging out on the site, enjoying the overall presence of Avid as your partner in day-to-day existence. Maybe that's true for some, and I'll not fault them for it. But I can't remember the last time I needed anything from them via their website. I have popped in occasionally to make sure they were still there, that's about it.

But lately there's a trend in any company of significance which is going through transitions like this to make visible changes more as a symbolic gesture of the change itself - not to actually improve things. "We are Avid now - we must represent that, reflect that, and communicate to the public that things are different now." It matters not that different translates to better or worse. Different is the goal.

If they want to make people like me happy about their web experience, make it less about shock and awe and more about ease of navigation. I'm happiest when I can use the web like I shop at Walmart - get in, get the stuff, and get the heck out of there as quick as you possibly can.

[kdubyou]

Originally Posted by netnoggin

I'm happiest when I can use the web like I shop at Walmart - get in, get the stuff, and get the heck out of there as quick as you possibly can.

Amen to that!

[O.G. Killa]

Originally Posted by necjamc

As long as they don't fire all the Audio guys anyway.

Doh! They already did, last year. they fired over 300 Digidesign developers as well as marketing, tech support, training, etc. They had 3 or 4 rounds of layoffs throughout digi and M-audio since the end of 2008. The last of which was right before Xmas of 2009. Most of the open positions were filled by current Avid employees taking on the addtional responsibilities.

Avid/Digi no longer develops Pro Tools in-house. they are contracting the work out to Global Logic, http://www.globallogic.com/ Based in Eastern Europe and South East Asia. These are the guys that are making Pro tools now.

[necjamc]

Originally Posted by O.G. Killa

Doh! They already did, last year. they fired over 300 Digidesign developers as well as marketing, tech support, training, etc. They had 3 or 4 rounds of layoffs throughout digi and M-audio since the end of 2008. The last of which was right before Xmas of 2009. Most of the open positions were filled by current Avid employees taking on the addtional responsibilities.

Avid/Digi no longer develops Pro Tools in-house. they are contracting the work out to Global Logic, http://www.globallogic.com/ Based in Eastern Europe and South East Asia. These are the guys that are making Pro tools now.

Ok that's bad. But Avid is from the east coast and Digi was west coast, global marketplace or not, I would imagine that they never had a complete picture of Pro Tools anyway. But I still have hope. Regardless of who was let go (not diminishing their contributions) but how many of them actually were part of the original Digidesign, pre 1995. If you say most then that's worse. But I have hope that they will turn it around. But being M-Powered I still have options provided they don't stop supporting my 2626.

I don't assume to know the technical details, this is just my opinion

[necjamc]

Originally Posted by O.G. Killa

Avid/Digi no longer develops Pro Tools in-house. they are contracting the work out to Global Logic, http://www.globallogic.com/ Based in Eastern Europe and South East Asia. These are the guys that are making Pro tools now.

How do you know this. I saw on their site they do work for Avid Telecom. But I didn't see This Avid. Is it publicly known? (I am not being argumentative, I am actually interested)

[O.G. Killa]

Originally Posted by necjamc

Ok that's bad. But Avid is from the east coast and Digi was west coast, global marketplace or not, I would imagine that they never had a complete picture of Pro Tools anyway. But I still have hope. Regardless of who was let go (not diminishing their contributions) but how many of them actually were part of the original Digidesign, pre 1995. If you say most then that's worse. But I have hope that they will turn it around. But being M-Powered I still have options provided they don't stop supporting my 2626.

I don't assume to know the technical details, this is just my opinion

That was the big controversy within the company... they were letting go some really key people who had been there a while.

Even if they weren't there from the get go... you spend 5 years to 10 years working at a company in development... you tend to learn the code inside and out.

did you know for example... that the reason you can't punch in on Midi regions the same way you punch in on audio regions is because of about 2 or 3 lines of code written back in the V5 days when they first added midi. And replacing those two or three lines to fix the punch in on midi regions bug breaks ALL midi functionality in PT? This is why, still to this day with V8.0.3, when you punch in on a midi region, a new midi region IS NOT created, the new midi is added into the existing midi region and PT won't create a new midi region until the record "head" has past the end of the existing midi region it is writing over.

Makes it a PITA to pull takes out of the midi region bin since a new midi region isn't always created as soon as you hit record.

Anyway... without having extensive experience with the code, a developer isn't going to know this... and when trying to fix one problem is going to "domino-effect" break a bunch of other things... why do you think it's taking so long to get any updates or point releases for protools?

[O.G. Killa]

Originally Posted by necjamc

How do you know this. I saw on their site they do work for Avid Telecom. But I didn't see This Avid. Is it publicly known? (I am not being argumentative, I am actually interested)

It's been publicly posted.

http://www.bestlands.com/jobs-4616-q...4-ukraine.html

If you want to work on Audio Products for Avid you're gonna have to move to Kiev, Ukraine and be employed by Global Logic.