A message to PR people, labels, bands, etc incl. stats

Hi All,

Hope 2009 is treating you well thus far. Just wanted to give you a
quick update on all things Drowned in Sound, mostly to do with new
bands, not sending us singles any longer, 2008 stats and the future of
DiS...


NEW BANDS // DiScover

You should have already had an email from rob@drownedinsound.com our
new DiScover editor (he's based in Sheff and working less than
part-time, so please don't expect prompt replies to everything), who
will be looking after all things relating to new music on DiS. We have
a whole DiScover week coming up next week, so get in quick if you want
your acts considered for a mention / linked to / on our mixtape,
etc...


SINGLES

Due to being crunched by the foot of Murdoch and DiS now only being
run by me on my own (and yes, I know I owe a lot of you emails but I'm
getting 1200+ everyday and very little time to read, let alone respond
to them), we've decided to call upon the specialist knowledge of the
ladies from http://www.thelipster.com . Don't call it outsourcing
because these ladies live and breath blogs, funny youtubes and
potential pop hits. Please send any links to rebecca@thelipster.com
and fire her tracks via soundcloud.com, which she's just setting up.

See their first column here: http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4136053


2008 STATISTICS

We had 3,286,656 unique visitors to DiS during 2008, racking up
49,506,549 page views and received an average of 322,000 unique visitors per month. Our average visitor looks at 6.01 pages and spends
6minutes and 53seconds on the site. There's a core of 20,000 people
who read and interact with DiS every single day. We now have 66,846
registered users and a lot of 2009 will be spent focussing on
developing the community aspects of our site and integrating partner
sites and technology we love, such as Twitter and Last.fm.

Oh and our album of the year was M83, closely followed by Frightened
Rabbit, Cut Copy, Nick Cave and Crystal Castles. If you don't know
what music we're about and missed the end of year list, see the full
list here: http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4135939


FUTURE OF DIS // ILL COMMUNICATION

Beyond next weeks new band week and a preview of 2009 week after that,
it'll be back to reviewing select albums and running news exclusives
regarding our favourite bands. We're currently taking on a few
columnists to mop up the little known stuff, focussing in on their
specialism. Because of this and mostly because we don't have the
resources to deal with a sack of post a day, as well as all your
emails asking for feedback, I'd prefer not be chased by both phone and
email for feedback on records that it's very likely I haven't got
around to listening to.

I have quite a few commitments beyond the day to day running of the
site and apologise that over the past few months, since making 14
people redundant after the whole BSKYB debacle (joint venture ended in
August), that I haven't been as amenable as you've come to expect with
DiS but like I said above, it's pretty much a one-man show at the
moment. We're currently trying to find ways to turn the corner and
man-up again. However, we're having to find a new office again in May
so haven't bothered to set-up a phone-line and would appreciate people
not chasing me via my mobile, especially out of office hours - I
promise I'll get around to email backlog, eventually.

In the meantime, it might be worth your while keeping an eye on the
site and approaching individual writers that you think may love your
forthcoming releases and contacting them direct.

Many thanks,

Sean

--
Founder & Editor // http://drownedinsound.com
Tweets // http://twitter.com/seaninsound

1 Junction Mews, London, W2 1PN