This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. I’m sure the search function on Myspace Music is working and people are finding the Myspace pages of the artists they are searching for. Even if the search function isn’t working, the premise of Myspace Music is that having artist’s music on people’s Myspace pages will lead to it being streamed and then download sales. Uh-oh! Music, like advertising, requires more than one listen or impression to make a sale. The notion that a group of people that are notoriously fickle are going to hear a song once on someone’s Myspace page and stop what they are doing to buy seems a bit ludicrous. There’s a reason that FM radio has such a tight rotation – so they can pound songs into people’s brains. People have always been streaming major label artists on Myspace, but now they are just doing it with the consent of the labels. I think a better way of measuring the effectiveness of Myspace Music in selling music would be to compare the number of times a song is streamed to actual download sales – especially after the first week. Artists such as Beyonce that were popular before Myspace Music are gonna still be popular with Myspace Music. However, I want to see Myspace Music actually create success stories out of unknown artists before I believe they are doing anything revolutionary. They have Myspace Records so all they have to do is make someone on their own label a success and I’m a believer.

Peter Epstein
http://www.thew...war.com/myspace