Website Of The Week Muse
Earlier this week, Muse won NME’s Best Website Award. The competition in this category was tough as it included well established sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter as well as other band sites from Green Day (www.greenday.com) and Kasabian (www.kasabian.co.uk). So was it a deserved winner?
One discussion point is that the band use the domain muse.mu . None of the band are inhabitants of Mauritius as far as I know but I’m prepared to forgive them this all in the name of creative URLs.
My first observation was that the site seemed a little bland. For a group that’s so creative this was a little disappointing.
- Where’s the whizzy flash bit?
- Where’s the latest single blaring out which I’m going to have to turn down/off?
- Where’s the impossible navigation that only someone who’s under 25 with a long fringe can operate?
Or maybe Muse realise that a lot of their fans are actually a little bit older and just want to a site that works intuitively.
Once you get under the hood of the site, there’s some great content to help fans engage with the band. I particularly liked the Image Gallery which had “Official” and “Fan” categories. The iPhone app is pretty impressive and the Media Player has loads of videos including behind the scenes snippets which allows Muso’s to feel as if they’re closer to the band. The forum is half decent, the Shop isn’t pushed too hard and the they have the usual Muse News and tour dates etc.
I’d like to see a bit of background on the band, how they met, what they get up to in their spare time (is that verging on stalking?) but with nearly 230,000 signed up members they’re obviously doing something right.
Just so you know, I did try and get tickets for Wembley in the Summer but missed the boat. Maybe if I’d signed up to the site, I would have known about it in plenty of time!
