Today, MySpace launched a new part of its Website called Transmissions that will feature candid session videos and recordings of musicians. The only thing on the page right now are a few session recordings from James Blunt and a video interview of him sitting at a piano. The page has a bunch of sliders like on a stereo equalizer that you can move around, but don’t seem to actually do anything. The level indicators are nice, though. Five songs for $14, though, seems a bit steep. (Songs are purchased through a partnership with Lala.com).
MySpace obviously wants this to become the MTV Unplugged for today’s music fans. Session recordings are perfect for MySpace because of their intimate nature and immediacy. Fans can get involved by leaving comments or going to the forums. Soon it looks like they will be able to vote for their favorite songs in each session, and request musicians to be featured in upcoming “transmissions.” This would be great for live performances as well.
Creating online events around music is a natural for MySpace. These performances are something special and exclusive to the site, and that is what will draw people. You can listen to an album stream anywhere. The more fans can participate, the more successful this will be. For instance, there should be a way for fans to request songs from individual artists, or eventually to mix and match songs from different sessions, and buy their own mixes or stream them (for free) from their MySpace pages.
Well, I think that channels are a good thing. Infact, we also made a channel of tech videos and hosted it on our site today itself, so seeing same steps by myspace is funny
, lets see how these channels succeed!!
Site is half done – nothing works besides playing the songs – the sliders do nothing. Why did they launch this without it being complete (or nearly complete)
And this is more like AOL Sessions than MTV Unplugged.
http://www.cent...ssions-launches
Has anyone put any thought into this actually not being a product of the folks over at myspace, but just someone’s personal profile and a buzz campaign? I’m sure the FIM / Myspace folks aren’t silly enough to claim ownership of this, are they?
They haven’t seen the much, much cooler “Practice Spaces” on Vice’s VBS.tv methinks.
That interface is absolutely HORRENDOUS. How is this site so popular, HOW?
#3 -it’s official myspace.
#5 – we don’t know if it’s popular yet
#6 In general, Myspace has the most awful interface imaginable for the size of site it is.
What an ugly interface! Looks like they desperately need to hire some UI and QA guys!
Beyond awful. Whomever designed this page should be forbidden to publish webpages for eternity. I continues to boggle my mind how myspace can have so much money and do such shoddy design.
Er, “it continues…” rather.
I don’t see what the big deal is about the interface, it’s completely in line with the design of the rest of MySpace. You expect a leopard to change its spots?
The first thing I thought about when I read this was that it’s about time… they should have done this years ago!
Jon
I think this is right approach providing a separate page for musician.
When I saw the picture I couldn’t believe that myspace put out such a poorly designed site. So I clicked on the link and … wow
“The only thing on the page right now are a few session recordings from James Blunt and a video interview of him sitting at a piano.”
Unsurprising. James Blunt has been scientifically proven to repel all decent music within a five-mile radius.
(He’s actually a nice, funny and self-deprecating guy, judging by his interview on Top Gear last weekend. But not nice enough to remove his own vocal chords with a rusty spoon for the benefit of humanity.)
wow, i love that feature. it’s cool/
john from kg to lbs