AOL Music Launches New Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Site, NoiseCreep

New Site to Provide Metal and Hard Rock Fans with News, Music, Video and Original Editorial Content

Launch Follows Successful Genre Launches in Rock, County and Hip-Hop

New York, NY. – AOL Music, http://www.music.aol.com, the web’s most visited online music destination,* today unveiled NoiseCreep, http://www.noisecreep.com, a new site dedicated exclusively to heavy metal and hard rock. This marks the fourth genre-specific site launch for AOL Music that also includes Spinner, http://www.spinner.com, for tastemaker rock fans, TheBoot, http://www.theboot.com, for country fans and TheBoomBox, http://www.theboombox.com, for hip hop fans. Each ranks as the top site in its respective category. AOL Music is also home to TourTracker.com, http://www.tourtracker.com, providing artist and venue touring information.

The newly launched site accessible from the AOL Music main page provides fans with a singular online destination for metal and rock band news, music and video content as well as original editorial content in an easily accessible blog format. The site will also serve as a launching pad for new artists and groups to develop a fanbase that is passionate about the genre. Advertising for the site will be sold through AOL’s Platform-A services.

The launch of NoiseCreep follows a successful year for AOL Music, which ranked as the most popular online music destination in total unique visitors for all of 2008, and is currently the only site with over 22 million monthly unique visitors.* In 2007, AOL Music launched Spinner.com for discerning rock music fans. The following year, AOL Music launched TheBoot for country fans and TheBoomBox for hip-hop fans. All three sites consistently rank as the top sites in their respective categories. According to the latest comScore data, Spinner garnered more than 4 million monthly unique visitors in February alone, with more than 17 million page views. TheBoot drew in more than 3 million unique visitors, generating 19 million page views, while TheBoomBox attracted more than 1 million unique visitors and generated 5 million page views.**

“We’re always looking to find new and innovative ways for providing music fans with a singular multimedia destination for artist news and discovery and for providing bands with a platform to showcase their music,” said AOL Music Vice President Bill Crandall. “Building upon a successful model we started with Spinner and then extended with TheBoot and TheBoomBox, we’re confident that NoiseCreep will resonate with fans and advertisers alike. It’s metal done right.”

NoiseCreep is the latest in a yearlong campaign to launch more than 30 new websites across the MediaGlow network. Launching niche specific sites has brought a significant new audience to AOL’s slate of Web brands and has driven record-setting engagement metrics. In 2008, unique visitors to MediaGlow sites grew to 70 million unduplicated users, with page views climbing 40% year-over-year and engagement growing 17% year-over-year. In addition, the influx of new consumers and deeper audience engagement levels provided AOL with double-digit increases in vertical content advertising revenue year-over-year in Q3 2008. Forthcoming launches include genre specific sites for reality television, soap operas and horror movies, as well as international editions of successful U.S. properties.

*comScore Media Metrix, February 2009
**Rankings for Spinner, TheBoot and TheBoomBox are based off custom categories built by AOL, based on comScore Media Metrix data.