Interview – Martin Dunn, Associated New Media

The Internet arm of Associated Newspapers, Associated New Media (ANM), has just launched what editor Martin Dunn claims is the first totally comprehensive city guide to London. Dunn, former editor of the New York Daily News and Today, says that the This Is London (TIL) site (http://thisislondon.co.uk) is the result of the collation of material from a wide range of sources, although the bulk of the information is gleaned from the seven different guides to London which are published by the Evening Standard. However, with fourteen journalists in its own newsroom, Dunn is keen to point out that plenty of material is originally produced, or at least re-purposed, by the London team itself. However, as Dunn notes, the resources of the Standard, as well as the ability to use it as a promotional tool, do ‘make life a lot easier’.

The TIL Website is a combination of editorial and information, a database and a magazine all in one. This twofold use of the site is the result of the research and focus groups which ANM conducted prior to the launch of TIL. Rather than seeing this duality of use as a weakness or blurring of utility, Dunn regards it as a main strength. “The idea is to present them [the users] with one uniform package which they can trust to get whatever they want out of London – I have no difficulty reconciling the multiplicity of uses for the site,” he says. Lee Thompson believes that the crux of the content is to provide information which the user can act upon; each review, for instance, links to a performance, venue and street map. To add further depth to TIL, there are plans to merge the Evening Standard’s Business Day Interactive site with TIL creating a dedicated business section. Dunn envisages the phasing out of Business Day over the next four or five months.

Dunn is concerned that TIL is not seen as a move to defend the future of the Evening Standard by ‘canabalising’ it onto the Internet, but rather as an “aggressive project to gain new readers” by providing a unique service. Martin Dunn’s focus on content and utilising the medium to its full should ensure that TIL rears well above the majority of Websites out there at present. As Dunn says, “I see many companies start Websites and then sit back in amazement when nobody comes to it, but why would they when [the publication] doesn’t offer anything day to day.” Thompson also feels that the Internet is chronically under-used by companies: “I think the penny’s going to drop for a lot of people that the costliest mistake they’re going to make is to believe that a Website is the answer to all their woes.”