I had an email recently from the Editor of NME.com, David Moynihan, about the News Diamond in practice. I thought it was worth reprinting in full:

“You describe much of what I do for a living: I am the Editor of NME.com and work in a buzzing cross-platform environment that mirrors your theories. Now that the dust is starting to settle a bit more in digital publishing, publishers are really taking notice of websites and web staff in ways that would have been unimaginable a few years ago.

“The challenge was always convincing paper staff that we were colleagues not rivals, here to compliment and expand upon their work, rather than cannibalise or undermine it. For the first time, in 2007/08 I have print staff coming and asking me about how they can get more involved with web publishing and asking what they need to know or do. People are really starting to wake up to the exciting future of digital publishing – right across organisations like IPC (or Emap, where I was Editor of FHM.com), from the board to the staff writer. That said, as a web editor I find that the change in processes, skill sets and attitude is still much too slow. The theories abound, but the practice is much more sluggish!

“Your news diamond was fascinating as it fits closely with what we do.

“An example: The Raconteurs (Jack White of the White Stripes ‘other’ band) release a new album today, in an unusual manner. They have side-stepped the usual pormotional and marketing moves and ruch-released the album with no warning, and therefore no reviews. It almost makes journalism redundant. Fan can simply listen to the album online at legal Mp3 download sites – why do they need NME?

“Except they do, it turns out. To mark the release of the album we have done all of the following on NME.com and the traffic speaks volumes about users’ needs:

1. Daily news stories in the run up to the release, covering a number of angles from album artwork, to release details to lyrics.
2. A Photo Gallery of the band to mark the release.
3. An instant review online, written by our writers in ‘blog’ format during their first listen. The full in-depth review and a feature about the unusual method of release will be in (yep, you guessed it) NME magazine, out this week.
4. Updated our Artist page nme.com/artists/the-raconteurs.
5. Streamed the album online with our radio media player.
6. Video to go online as soon as it’s released”

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