NME.com - how a website can complement a printed publication

Paul Bradshaw recently blogged about an email from the editor of NME.com, David Moynihan, discussing how NME.com works alongside its printed publication.

This is what I'm aiming to with THINGS guide, so I thought that NME.com was worth some dissection. NME.com is a great example of how a web presence can contribute to branding. Moynihan comments that NME.com complements and expands upon the printed publication, rather than rivalling it - how does it do that?

The most noticable thing about NME.com is its news service - it updates a ton of content, I personally subsribe to their feed, it's mostly news in brief, stuff like The Ting Tings score first Number One', for example, which gives a few paragraphs of information, a rundown of the top 10 singles charts, and a You-Tube of their video. The magazine have previously featured The Ting Tings on their cover, meaning an extended interview, so as we can see, this type of content isn't in competition at all.

Reviews, however, is another kettle of fish - how can you feature reviews on a website and not contradict the weekly printed version - which does contain reviews? Well, I see they're only updated once a week which probably means they're the same reviews as in the printed publication. I don't know if they are, but I'd presume that they're timed well so that there is still a good reason to buy the magazine rather than just reading online.

The website has got extensive photo archives... full albums of gigs, albums of photoshoots, all of the stuff that didn't fit in the magazine, and a weekly album of what's in the magazine - just the specific photos they used, not the layouts, thankfuly, so you can't read the text that accompanied it too. There is also a video section, which speaks for itself. You can't publish videos in a magazine, but you can online. And yes, they make their own content - this is original journalism, not just a reproduction of music videos and suchlike.

There are a few stores on the site - the NME music store, which I know is signposted in the magazine, showing how the magazine promotes the website too. Same with the videos - the top 10 music video page in the magazine gives links to NME.com. You can also buy gig tickets at the NME.com.

The Artists section of the site is something that certainly can't be done in print - it's an archive of features on the NME's top 40 artists, complete with old photographs and biographies, video, lyrics, related news, etc. Very comprehensive.

There's also MyNME - this particularly is indicative of how the NME retain their audience. Readers can sign up to recieve information of exclusive competitions, videos, listening posts, free downloads, as well as a profile page that you can customise to recieve feeds of all news on your favourite, hand picked artists. They say - "it's like a free club" - a great way to make readers return to the site time and again.

I've already talked about how, with this prime audience, it isn't necessary to have a website to have a web presence, but this is a great example of one that works, due mostly to the amount of RSS feeds they provide and the MyNME option. It does show that a web presence can perfectly complement a printed publication - my challenge is to do this through social networking, until I can afford to get a website done too.