Sony BMG — Online Standards

While many sites will require unique treatment to best match the target demographic and marketing/promotional requirements, most music sites can be pared down to a simple, logical, easy to understand architecture. It's important to keep this architecture as minimal as possible, so as to promote tighter integration between areas of the site within pages. Blogs should be promoted with news and vice versa. The community elements of the site should be pervasive throughout everything, as opposed to being confined to a single corner of the site. More importantly every element on the site should be displayed in the proper context. For example, discography, audio, videos should all be shown in the same place allowing each to feed off one another to strengthen the sale. Community content like message board posts about a tour should be displayed adjacent to tour dates.

Recommendations for Content Placement

See Community Widgets for additional recommendations related to community.

Promo / Intro (optional)	Tour/Contest/Album release promotions Animated introductions
Home	News (Content Widget powered by CPS) Audio Player (Compact Version)
Music	Discography Content Album Mini Track Listing with links to audio and video (popping up the relevant player) Commerce Module (digital and physical, direct promotions from Musicbox Store) Video Content (thumbnails that pop up the Video Player) Link: Musicbox Mobile
Videos	External popup link to Brightcove-based video player
Shows	Tour Dates (Content Widget powered by CPS)
The Band	Bio Photos Any personal content from the artist
Community	Link: Message Board Link: Chat (if available) Links to MySpace, LiveJournal, PureVolume, and other third-party community sites
Downloads	Buddy Icons AIM MSN Desktop Wallpapers for computers Banners Message Board Signatures Commerce Module: Digital Retailers Link: Musicbox Mobile
Store	External link to primary online retailer (Musicbox Store unless specified otherwise)

Please Note: Unconventional Navigation

Sites that feature a more immersive experience may obscure navigation using unconventional design methods (i.e. hide navigation from users by forcing them to hover over elements to uncover options) must offer a supplemental navigation option for users. This method could be a horizontal strip centered at the bottom of the site. This strip could be dimmed until hovered over, or hidden until activated by hovering over a clearly labeled area or link. This is very important so as to not frustrate users attempting to locate content.