Gardner Web

This month, October 6 to be exact, Gardner Publications (parent company of Modern Machine Shop, Production and Products Finishing magazines) opens what will be our first foray onto the Internet. It's called GardnerWeb.

We're all very excited about this new venture. Admittedly though along with the excitement is a little apprehension. After all, we've never done this before. But we're going for it, in part because we believe it's important to growing our relationship with you, our readers, and because it'll enable us to do some really neat things, we think you're going to like, in ways that traditional print media can not.

No way our magazines will be abandoned in favor of this new medium, however. Quite the contrary, their future is very secure because they have strengths beyond electronics. GardnerWeb is simply another arrow in our communication quiver. It's a new way to keep you in touch with the metalworking world outside your shop. It's not an alternative to magazines, it's an augmentation of them.

Our hope for this metalworking Web site is to bring you, through an electronic medium, content about our field that's relevant and right. Behind our home page is an exclusive metalworking collective represented by our three main properties. But the medium is interactive. You have direct access to the web site and the power to make it become a most helpful tool for you.

Think of what we're doing with GardnerWeb as a work in process. It will never be finished. When you look us up (and we encourage you to do so) what you'll see is phase one of an ever-evolving combination of features designed to get you information to help you solve problems and answer questions concerning your profession. As with our magazines, GardnerWeb is a forum for exchange. People with solutions find people with problems and vice versa.

Some of the features we've initially selected should be helpful to you but none are carved in stone. Truth is we don't really know what this web site will ultimately be, because much of the direction will come from you.

You see, we're making this journey into cyberspace together. It should be a great ride.