MI Pro

Future is already a powerhouse in MI publishing. It’s the clear newsstand leader in every sector that matters.

It is also, as a company, a major online force. Across various markets (from video gaming to mountain biking) it attracts over ten million unique users to a network of websites that boast exclusive content as well as deep levels of user interactivity.

Until now, however, these two strengths haven’t enjoyed too many areas of crossover. The websites relating to the company’s print mags were quite basic affairs; blogs, essentially. More Web 0.5 than 2.0. As  associate publisher Charlotte Morgan concedes, they were about pushing the print products rather than being a new media beachhead.

The obvious move would have been to revamp them on an individual basis. To bulk up the content and the functionality so that they were as effective online as they currently are on the page.

But Future has gone for something far less obvious to overhaul its MI space: less obvious, more ambitious and more interesting. It is launching an all encompassing musicians website called Music Radar (musicradar.com) - due to be live by day one of NAMM

Managing editor Michael Leonard explains: “We have all this fantastic content in these great glossy magazines – and if you don’t buy it within a 30 day period it’s gone for good. So it was obvious to make it available online and provide what will be an unrivalled database of product reviews and information.

“But we wanted to do more than archive the print products. We wanted to build a community, because that’s what the internet has become all about. It’s about the scale of what we think is achievable. We don’t want to limit Music Radar to being reflections of existing products, plus if you take that route you always risk canabalising magazine sales.”

Instead the site is broad and eclectic sprawl that incorporates news, reviews, tuition, samples and forums across three broad areas: Guitar, Drums and Tech. Obviously these could be broken down further, almost infinitely, in fact, but that would be against the spirit of the venture – it’s about building a community, not barriers.

It’s not a series of separate websites for electric guitarists, acoustic guitarists, rock guitarists, classical guitarists, new guitarists or grizzled guitarists, it’s a site for musicians, to help them make and enjoy more music.

It will also be an incredible news source, with a team of six journalists, including a US editor, posting 15-20 stories a day. There’s no need to change your homepage from mi-pro.co.uk, obviously, but you’ll definitely want to add musicradar.com to your favourites.

Perhaps the most important section of the site will be the reviews. Charlotte Morgan points to research which suggests the main reason musicians go online is to look for kit and to read reviews of kit they might want to buy.

Music Radar will very soon feature over 12,000 different products. Many will be covered by reviews reconstituted from Future’s magazines, whilst others will have more basic manufacturers’ descriptions and lists of key features.

To complete the process, users can click to buy much of the gear featured, through Future’s two online retail partners, Dolphin and Thomann. More partners will be added over the coming year.

Other key areas of the site will be tuition and samples. It’s important to note that everything will be free. There is plenty of online tuition for various instruments, but much of it is either rubbish or has to be paid for. Sometimes it’s both.

Music Radar will offer tuition across a number of instruments in various forms, including video, and it’s all part of the service.

Similarly, with samples, everything will be free and of high quality. Future has built up quite a bank of material through its print brands Future Music and Computer Music and this will be made part of Radar.

What will probably make the site special for each user, however, is the fact that the experience will be different for each user. When you register (which you have to do to comment on stories, participate in forums, buy gear, etc), you fill in a profile and this helps Music Radar steer you towards content that will be of particular interest to you.

It will help you find gear that seems to match your needs, plus other users with similar tastes. It will lead to friendships, rivalries, debate and probably the formation of many new bands.

The site was in development for over nine months before launch and represents a £750,000 investment. It has been promoted in house ads across Future’s stable of magazines and the 2008 marketing spend will be just shy of £1m.

Over 100,000 people pre-registered their interest ahead of launch and the aim is for 500,000 users by the end of the year in the UK. That’s quite a community – and quite a chunky target market for the MI industry’s suppliers.

Morgan says they have already welcomed the opportunity: “The trade reaction has been fantastic. The most common line is that it’s about time we had something like this.”

There will probably be a similar reaction amongst consumers. They will be used to news sites, to looking at reviews online, to buying online, to tuitions and to samples, but what they’ll never have seen before is a site that does all of this to such a high standard and for free.

Leonard knows that the investment and work that has gone into Music Radar to date means that is a benchmark for MI content online from day one – and the plan is to improve it constantly.

“It’s been extremely hard work and perhaps none of us knew just what it would take to get something as ambitious as this off the ground. But the end result is that we haven’t cut corners or taken easy options. Music Radar is the complete MI website.”