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April 28, 2008

Two Years Later, MySpace Karaoke Launches

Michael Arrington

20 comments »

MySpace Karaoke launched today. I had actually forgotten about this, but the site is powered by kSolo, an online karaoke service that MySpace parent company Fox Interactive Media acquired back in April 2006. Yep, it took them two years to rebrand and relaunch it.

kSolo joins Newroo as the other startup Fox acquired in 2006 that has sort of languished. After acquiring Newroo (March 2006), MySpace sat on the asset for a year and then beta launched MySpace News. It was and remains a bit of a ghost town, with little integration with the main MySpace service.

MySpace Karaoke may not do much better. kSolo, which has remained live during the 2 year development cycle, has little traffic (nor does its competitor, SingShot, which shut down).

It’s U.S. only for now, with international rollout in the coming months.

Will this be a popular addition to the MySpace world? Here’s an example video, you decide.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 6:15 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Comments

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  1. Judson Collier

    April 28th, 2008 at 7:53 pm

    Oh jeez come on.

    How many different subsidiaries of myspace are there? Maybe they should stop trying to be EVERYTHING, and just work on the one that everyone uses. Spend less money on this, and more on a tableless redesign.

  2. LP

    April 28th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

    “We apologize, but this content is not licensed in your region, and therefore, cannot be played. “

  3. gilltots

    April 28th, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    that is seriously pretty damn cool.

    rock on with your bad selves!!

  4. Matt

    April 28th, 2008 at 8:13 pm

    Two years and they’ve not added video to the package? C’mon! No karaoke experience can be complete without *watching* the poor performer (and beer, but TC has not yet mentioned a MySpace Beer acquisition).

    kSolo would be better suited as a complement to MySpaceTV rather than being another isolated entity.

  5. Duncan Riley

    April 28th, 2008 at 8:18 pm

    yet another georetarded FAIL.

  6. Solacetech

    April 28th, 2008 at 8:23 pm

    Please don’t tell my in-laws about this! Talking about gaining a new audience. This might seem real corny, but to some this will actually be really really fun…

  7. Miles (SEM iCluck)

    April 28th, 2008 at 8:23 pm

    It could succeed if it targeted users in Japan and China as well as other asian countries - if MySpace karaoke succeeded in the US it would have to first be a social phenomenon and karaoke is big in the US but only at drunken parties, not really online unless somehow virally marketed to the users. I don’t know how this will pan out?

  8. Sean

    April 28th, 2008 at 8:27 pm

    Yea, I agree with Matt, it can’t be called Karaoke without video,
    actually we are doing online Karaoke also, and we believe what we offer is much more interesting.

    http://www.ikala.tv

  9. Daniel

    April 28th, 2008 at 8:45 pm

    They found the one thing that could make MySpace more painful. Now they implemented it.

    FAIL.

  10. Miguel Carrasco

    April 28th, 2008 at 9:04 pm

    Singshot didn’t shut down, it was actually aquired by EA, and is now The Sims On Stage (http://thesimsonstage.ea.com). My wife and her neice go on it all the time and sign songs.

    Maybe MySpace can take a lesson from EA. EA sends out emails every week with the new songs they add in, and the site seems pretty busy!

  11. Ryan Merket

    April 29th, 2008 at 1:07 am

    Jeeez.

    FAIL.

  12. Spence

    April 29th, 2008 at 1:56 am

    “We apologize, but this content is not licensed in your region, and therefore, cannot be played.

    We are working on launching international sites soon so please be sure to check back with us.

    Sing your heart out!

    MySpace Karaoke team”

    Sing my heart out, when it does work in the UK, what a pile of shit!

  13. Ferreira

    April 29th, 2008 at 3:09 am

    WTF!!! So, they launched a new version of Ksolo without video and with a limited catalogue with 3.000 songs, and only for the US market???? I can’t believe it!!! ;-)

    We are running an online video karaoke with more than 13.000 songs, and we are working to launch also in the US market in May. At this moment the website is only for Spanish speakers, but I think our offer is quite better than this failed Myspace Karaoke. Check for yourserlves our website here: http://www.redkaraoke.es

  14. Meissen

    April 29th, 2008 at 6:16 am

    And of course there is no lizens for German market… :-(

  15. Mike

    April 29th, 2008 at 9:01 am

    Ferreira…the whole point is that they legally licensed the songs. I am sure your site is an illegal site, and judging by the crappy midi recordings on there, won’t become very popular.

  16. Dirk

    April 29th, 2008 at 9:03 am

    Singshot - shut down?? It had been acquired by Electronic Arts and is now part of Sims on Stage!!

  17. zzTop

    April 29th, 2008 at 10:35 am

    I wish news corp would stop wasting so much money on myspace so they could bring back arrested development.

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