AU Review relaunches new website for 10th birthday, editor Sosefina Fuamoli moves to triple j

Australian independent music publication The AU Review, which has been covering music, arts, travel, film, gaming and lifestyle stories from around Australia since 2008, has turned 10 years old. 

They celebrate their birthday as Wednesday, August 6, 2008 – the day founding editor Larry Heath reviewed Vampire Weekend and Little Red at the Metro Theatre in Sydney.

The site is now moving to a totally revamped website, with ten years worth of archived articles reshuffled over the beta period. The anniversary also marks the end of sister publication The Iris, which was the dedicated home entertainment brand of the AU network, launched in 2013.

The site’s content, which spanned film, TV, gaming and tech, will merge with The AU Review on the new site.

Check it all out HERE.

Heath says of the changes: “Over the past few months we’ve reached out to the industry for their feedback of the site, and many of these changes are the result of those conversations.

“Thank you to all those who took the time to deliver it. We hope you’ll like what you see!”

The team is also undergoing a restructure as they wave a fond farewell to their editor in chief of seven years, Sosefina Fuamoli, who will take the next step in her career at triple j, filling in for Al Newstead on Music News until the end of October.

“Seven years at the AU review was challenging and rewarding in many ways,” Sosefina tells TMN.

“Having the creative liberty to create content in a space dominated by tabloid music journalism was an opportunity I relished and will still continue to thrive on in future projects.

“The AU review has been a great champion for emerging artists, writers and photographers; that will never change. I’m always keen to be learning more about our changing landscape, so I’m super keen to jump into the triple j lane and try it out for size.”

Heath adds, “It’s exciting to be moving the site forward, but certainly bittersweet as we say goodbye to Sosefina Fuamoli… after over seven years with the publication, and two and a half years as editor in chief.

Updates to the format include:

• The daily Track of the Day: Won’t always be a single, but drawn from all their favourite releases. You still can’t pay to be placed.
• Spotify Integration: All tracks of the day will be added to a new Spotify Discovery Playlist, which is permanently embedded on the right-hand side of the website. (And you can’t pay to be placed here either!)
• Travel will be taking a larger focus on the site, with the section merging with Food and Lifestyle to bring forth exciting new content opportunities.
• Better integration of arts, film, gaming content and more.
• More features and opinion pieces.
• More guides (e.g. “Gig Guides”) to help support local events around the country.
• 35% less ads.

You can get in touch with the editorial team, who will be absorbing Sosefina’s role collectively. Contact them by emailing editor@theaureview.com, and send press releases to info@theaureview.com.

The site will also be launching new ‘Pitching Hours’ giving anyone with a story to pitch – be it a publicist, a manager of a band with a killer new track, or someone about to launch their first event – the ability to connect directly and pitch to the site’s editorial team.

Details to be revealed soon, meanwhile, you can call (02) 4017 12AU (1228).

“Running a website in this day and age is not easy. Budgets are tight and sites like ours become an afterthought to traditional marketing and of course, Facebook.

“A lot of these changes have come about in order to help streamline the site to make it able to survive these conditions – but the byproduct is a site which we believe is better than anything that’s come before it. We’re very excited to be moving the site forward.”

To celebrate its achievements, stay tuned to the website for an announcement of its next 10th Birthday Event, which will involve a huge two-stage party during BIGSOUND.