NME receives social media boost from Leeds entrepreneurs

A Leeds-based father and son team are bringing NME into the social media age.

Mark and Charlie Buckle run Amondo, a social media app that allows users to bring all their social media content together in one place to create richer, shareable, stories.

The company has partnered with NME to become the exclusive launch content partner for the new site.

With Amondo, users are able to create visually rich, interactive stories from videos, photos and social posts and share them via the new Imprint format.

NME has selected six Imprints documenting the best music and festivals of 2015 to launch on Amondo. Future NME Imprints will showcase new talent, gigs, artists and material from the magazine and NME.com.

Content from NME’s Imprints can be integrated into users’ own stories, allowing NME to become part of users’ experiences.

The Amonfo platform will also be used by NME as a new way of creating shareable and engaging content for the brand’s commercial partners.

Over the last 18 months, Amondo has raised £350k in seed funding to develop the app to a beta launch. The product has garnered interest from the publishing sector, music brand owners, car manufacturers and retailers.

Amondo is currently seeking to attract additional funding to take the brand to market.

Mark Buckle, co-founder of Amondo said: “Amondo believes you should be able to capture everything that is great about an event. By bringing all your content together in a single format. Even at this early stage, we’ve had a great deal of interest and are in discussion with companies in Silicon Valley in California. I’d like to think we can look closer to home and attract further investment from Yorkshire.“

The content users store in Amondo can be selected and presented in an Imprint. Imprints can be shared within the Amondo network, by email, or posted to 3rd party networks such as Facebook or WhatsApp.

Charlie Buckle, co-founder of Amondo, added: “Working with NME has been a great experience and has become central to our launch strategy.  Amondo is about great experiences and shared passions, captured and shared in the new Imprint format.  This relationship enables us to give our users exclusive photos, videos and short editorial features that add richness to their own festival experiences, and make their stories more engaging, immersive and shareable.“

The partnership feeds into NME’s strategy to work more closely with digital start-ups to launch new, innovative, digital products and follows NME’s recent collaboration with start-up Tapjet to build the new NME Daily app, which was recently named as ‘Best New App’ in Apple’s App Store.

Richard Giddings, head of new product development, Time Inc. UK, also commented: “NME is committed to working with start-ups and, as part of our on-going programme of new product development; we’re pleased to announce this partnership with Amondo. Our insight tells us that our audiences want the ability to co-create experiences with NME and Amondo opens up this opportunity.“

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