Rolling Stone Magazine To Launch Music Social Networking Site
Rolling Stone Magazine is in the early phases of launching a music-oriented social networking site according to Keith Blanchard, Executive Director for Online Media at Wenner Media.
Blanchard revealed the publishing giant’s plans at a recent speaking engagement at New York University. According to a student in attendence, the new entity will be a social network for music fans, complete with profiles and the ability to have a say in their Best of lists. NYU journalism major Andrea Feczko also revealed that Blanchard is planning on digitizing a back catalog of approximately one thousand Rolling Stone issues. The archives will be positioned online, and also packaged as a DVD collection.
The Future: Rollingstone.com has never been a serious contender in the music publishing space on the web. Its outsourced offerings and meager content have left many longtime fans high and dry. Younger audiences don’t even consider the site a destination at all even though the print publication delivers big circulation numbers. Although Wenner is very late to the social networking game, a site that can deliver exclusive content, liberal personal use rights and the ability to massage everything into a customized personal space could be a contender. However, Blanchard should really consider plugging in a feature set like Clipmarks to give the site a unique flair. Clipmarks, which has been plagued by poor management and an ever-shifting design focus, could be a bargain for Wenner Media. If the site can leverage its legendary reputation and brand name with a rich feature set and a major offline component, a Web 2.0 version of Rolling Stone is a good bet.
