NME.com Relaunches With More Interactive Features
IPC’s online version of music paper NME has relaunched for the second time in two years and now features improved levels of user interactivity. The NME.com site now includes MYNME, which allows registered users to create personalised scrapbooks of NME articles, sign up for news emails about artists, releases and tickets and have a localised gig guide posted on their MYNME page.
Another new feature of the site is a search engine which links users to other music websites, artist’s homepages and the NME archive. NME.com’s media director, Neil Robinson said that the new features “provide a level of interactivity and convenience that has been missing from the UK web until now.”
The online version of the NME first launched in June 1996, and has been relaunched at least once before now, in March 1999 (see IPC Relaunches NME Website). It innovations over the years have included the being the first UK website to include soundclips with its web reviews (1996) and again being the first UK website to use video interviews and webcast a gig (1999). The site has featured sanctioned downloads of new tracks and has continued webcasting, with events such as Glastonbury and Reading Festivals and the NME Premier Shows and Awards.
The reward for this investment has been rising usage – the site recorded one million users per month in April this year – and now NMETV is planned, thanks to a deal with Flextech (see Flextech Deal Will Mean November Debut For NME TV).
At the moment, NME.com appears to dominate the field of music websites. However, a new contender, backed by radio owners Chrysalis, as set to pose a challenge in future. RideTheTiger.co.uk is holding a glitzy West End launch for its music and lifestyle site in London on 31 October, when it will also reveal the site’s ‘real’ name. Claiming to be “the UK’s first ever-personalised multi-channel music website” it is promising a “personally tailored music and lifestyle website without time-consuming downloads”.
These contenders in the potentially lucrative market of online music information have latched onto what could prove to be new media’s greatest strength – the ability to get personal. The success of one of the summer’s biggest TV stories, Big Brother, was attributed by some to the degree of interactivity offered by the accompanying website where viewers could keep up to date and vote. As a result the site went straight into MMXI’s top ten UK websites during August (see Big Brother Website Makes It Into August Top Ten).
Personalisation and interactivity may prove a mixed blessing for the advertising world. On the one hand, it allows messages to be directed straight to the people who are interested – in this case, the fans of a particular music genre. However, personalisation also contributes to an increasingly fragmented audience, which may make mass-audience launches and campaigns harder to achieve in years to come.
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