As the new Myspace goes into BETA we ask if the platform can once again return to its former glory as musical social networking heavyweight.
I got right into Myspace around 2006, along with 100 million others; it was the first site of its kind and broke down the barrier between fans and artists. It successfully opened exciting channels of communication for gigs, new releases and various other cool musical stuff (and standard nonsense). Apart from internet forums on artist websites, this was unheard of at the time. It was pre-Spotify so being able to listen to handfuls of songs from the artist was an essential feature that helped drive its popularity.
Somewhere along the way something went wrong. One minute it was a bustling hub with artists making it from zero to hero overnight, next minute it was a twitching corpse of a platform, with just the odd metal band with four or five fans and dodgy porn bots going about their business. In addition, the Myspace music player turned clunky and played everything other than what you had requested.
However, now owned by Specific Media and Justin Timberlake, the platform has been completely rebuilt from the ground up. With a few lucky people having access to the BETA version, the site is looking to be officially re-launched sometime in 2013.
Obviously, the musical social media landscape has changed hugely since Myspace’s initial launch, with bands and labels utilising Facebook and Twitter in a big way, sometimes along with a dozen other useful platforms like Last.FM; so realistically, can MySpace still have a big impact
To be honest, I wasn’t blown away by the teaser video (shown below) launched back in September and I’m sure it wasn’t just because it starred Justin Timberlake(!). Even after watching, it’s still a little unclear what it’s going to be, other than a sort of Pinterest music-thing where you sign in with Facebook and/or Twitter? Hmmm…
The main question is, it looks pretty but is it going to be useful? The preview videos showed us features such as updates (similar to Facebook and Twitter), photo albums, playlists, friend lists and articles; hardly mind blowing and easily found elsewhere. There is also some kind of world map which shows where the artist is popular this week – personally I wouldn’t use this and I’m not sure I know anyone who would need to, unless you were the artist or label.
Justin Timberlake, who has now been revealed as an investor, claims ‘(there’s ) need for a place where fans can interact with their favourite entertainers…’, but I disagree, as this dynamic is already present in existing social media. He goes on to say, ‘Art is inspired by people and vice versa, so there’s a natural social component to entertainment. I’m excited to help revitalise Myspace by using its social media platform to bring artists and fans together in one community.’
This suggests that they are going for an emulation of what other platforms are currently doing elsewhere to create an all-encompassing one-stop shop. I suppose this has a point but does it really pack enough punch to motivate everyone to go running back to Myspace?
As a bit of a music enthusiast, I think this has possible potential, as I don’t mind logging in and out of different places to get all the information I need, but I suppose it would be handy to login to Myspace and have it in one place. However, if Myspace seriously want to compete with the brutal competition out there – interesting sites such as bandcamp – they really need to nail down their USP.
One indication of that potential USP, is a recently leaked Myspace presentation revealing that they are aiming (with investment) for a subscription service that will offer 42 million songs. If you compare this with Spotify, which has a mere 15 million, it’s a mightily impressive hoard of tunes. Apparently, a high level of this content is sourced from unsigned artists, which I feel is the heart beat of any social musical platform and currently a pretty weak area for Spotify. Creating a streaming platform like Spotify which targets unsigned content, together with some smart recommendation functionality and community features, is a pretty exciting differentiator.
For Myspace to really fly, it’s essential the platform is fun to use (that’s why we’re all here right?) and everyone including established artists, unsigned artists and most importantly regular users have a voice and feel like they own the platform, rather than the other way around . We’re increasingly seeing angry Facebook updates from artists complaining that they are unable to communicate with 100% of their fan base, so the timing for a service like this seems to be spot on. If they allow the music community to easily broadcast, communicate and collaborate, they can’t go too far wrong.
If they get these ingredients just right, music fans could have more than enough space for Myspace.
Tempero on Google+
