Over the last few weeks MySpace Music has quietly rolled out a number of new features that should make the service significantly more appealing to consumers. While MySpace Music kicked off to an fairly impressive start when it launched last September, seeing a huge amount of traffic and streamed songs, even its President Courtney Holt has conceded that it wasn’t very user-friendly and didn’t bring many new features to the table. The initial launch of MySpace Music was mostly about laying the groundwork to build a sustainable business. Now, the site is shifting focus to deliver what its consumers want.
The most readily apparent update is the site’s new music player, which is quicker than its predecessor and will soon feature user-customizable skins. Searching has also been overhauled, with a new focus on helping users find artists with a Google-like “Did you mean”, as well as verified artist profiles so users don’t have to stumble across impostors.
The site is also placing a new emphasis on playlists, a feature that has been very popular (with over 105 million playlists created since MySpace Music’s launch), but one that also had some irritating restrictions, including a limit on the number of playlists that each user could create. The new version allows users to create as many as they’d like, each of which can be up 100 songs in length. Users will now also be able to display their full roster of playlists in their profiles (previously they could only publicly share one playlist) and can also share a static URL associated with each playlist with friends, who can listen to the playlist even if they aren’t MySpace members. Perhaps most important, the site will soon allow for playlist embeds, though they haven’t been rolled out yet.
Another upgrade to the site is the introduction of album pages, which allow users to browse an artist’s disc catalogue and to (finally) buy entire albums at once (previously they could only purchase one song at the time). Users can also keep tabs on their favorite artists using activity feeds, which were deployed a few weeks ago.
Looking forward, we’re hearing that MySpace is moving towards rolling out a new hub focused on music videos – and one that will likely compete with the proposed venture in the works between UMG and YouTube. MySpace has the unique advantage of having rights to music videos from every major label (the rights were secured when MySpace Music first formed), which could give it the leg up in what appears to be an upcoming battle in this space.
der when the heck is MySpace going to come out with MySpace connect like Facebook..lol
Come out with Facebook connect?
It’s called MySpaceID, also known previously as Data Availability.
It has been out for over 6 months.
It has been out for 6 months, yet I have not seen any substantial uses of MySpaceID anywhere.
Would you be so kind as to give us at least one example of where it is being used?
He asked when a Facebook Connect like service would be offered from MySpace, not who’s using it or how often it’s being used. Who are you to interrogate someone for offering factual information?
MySpace knows where to focus. Although the readers of TechCrunch have moved on from this site, the music industry and music fans overall are hooked and things like this will keep the majority of the band’s on there.
Oooh, skins.
MySpace needs a way to discover new artists and songs. One can only take so much of the same people with the low user account numbers in the unsigned music charts area gaming shxt, lol.
+1 for Zuzz. MySpace has gotten buried by Facebook (and twitter) as a social networking site. But they are still a haven for bands large and small. Why not differentiate themselves by promoting undiscovered bands? Instead of copying what is already out there, myspace needs unique content or features. It’s a difficult task.
there’s this new hot artist feature that shows label, indie and unsigned bands. it’s a start. they need to show popular bands and music by friends. hopefully that will come sometime soon.
Here’s a success story… Ross Robinson, producer of Korn, At the Drive In, the Cure, and many others, used Myspace Music to find a local Long Beach band, Repeater – they are working together on a new album and putting it out with something called the white label collective.. don’t give up hope, artists..
“new hot artist feature”… where? I didn’t see it on the http://music.myspace.com page.
Research and article about the strategy and business model for Myspace music would be very much appreciated.
I understand iTunes. It’s simple.
Myspace pays for rights to music. How do they monetize?
中国公文网 中国皮肤网Research and article about the strategy and business model for Myspace music would be very much appreciated.
its about time MySpace music has had a revamp. I think its a great feature and about time users are able to browse an artist’s disc catalogue, do you think that this feature would allow unsigned artists to get more recognition?
And did you know that Sponsors will provide free downloads of music tracks through MySpace? This service was launched in the US and so far has little repertoire from independent labels.
I found this information on Antonis Plessas website.
No doubt this will soon be blocked from the UK
Does the site still take about 4.7 hours to load every time you type in myspace.com/(anything)?
won’t be allowed in UK.
I think myspace has had it’s day. I was talking to my son (who is 17) and he was telling me how all of his friends have ditched myspace in favor of Facebook.
As Pete D. mentioned, it takes forever for anything to load on myspace, and their new search results (which TC didn’t cover) really suck and are counter-productive (much like everything on myspace).
Being in the music industry, I used to use myspace as a discovery tool, but now I find myself using twitter and rss feeds for that.
Myspace=difficult+frustrating. They’ll need to overcome that (i.e. make the site work) if they want to survive.
Have you gone on myspace in the last year? The site is so much fastest. I really don’t see how they could make any faster then it is.
Maybe I just have fast internet. I mean some of the old profiles are a little slow. But the new 2.0 profile are fast.
Yeah, I’m still on there once a week (have to, necessary evil but it used to be daily) and the songs take several minutes to load and the the “features” are more like bugs.
I also have a fast connection, and really have no probs w/ other sites.
I completely agree. I’m a senior in high school, and almost every kid in my school has a facebook account, while only a realtively small amount of people are on myspace. I have a myspace, and although when I first got it, I would check it everyday, now I only go on it once or twice a month, just to see if its still there. I’m on facebook for anywhere from half an hour to a couple hours a day. Myspace just doesn’t seem as polished or easy to use as facebook. I feel like a lot of the updates Myspace is coming out with now are just copies of things that Facebook has already done.
As an avid music lover, myspace has been a great resource for me to find new music. How do you use twitter and RSS feeds to find new artists?
Myspace has (in my opinion) been slowly dying, but its fighting back now!
The new player has a great look, but MySpace needs to focus on the smaller bands. Major artists and label contracts are very important, but if they loose upcoming and indie artists to the other music and social networks, they’re won’t be relevant in the future.
Hey,
There is a fun talk at Stanford Grad School of Business on March 17th. MC Hammer and the manager of Death Cab for Cutie are going to be there among other distinguished panelists from Tapulous, Mozes…
Check it out…
http://www.vlab...le.html?aid=260
I wake up every morning and turn on my MySpace music player… thanks MySpace. You have never cost one penny in 5 years…
Yawn. Spotify kills MySpace music which feels so 2002ish.
It’s really hard to take these claims of Facebook superiority seriously. When people start realizing that it’s a size with almost zero features, they are going to leave it behind just as quickly as they herd-conformed into adopting it. Super-poke gets old really fast.
I don’t like it…
Yes….I skimmed thru…someone was saying that Myspace is kinda passe…..it really is…alot of people use Facebook now..in fact Facebook is more popular outside of America….but alot of people (like me) are too lazy or dont feel like adding all their friends from Myspace and creating a new facebook acct.. I dont even have emails to 99% of my Myspace friends you know…so that would suck to only have 4 friends to talk to on Facebook..not too mention I dont like my real name being on Facebook…i have privacy concerns and enemies.
But yes Myspace is slow..there are too many adds, or too much scripts running…and now they are javascripting up the site a lil too much. Myspace might die soon…but then again its doin alot of good stuff too…a lil late…but you know…it has a built in base anyway.
Time to digress…..
Though,,,this is good to hear about Myspace Music…i really still do not like the limited amount of music that Myspace has on its sites…and the playlist controls and shtuff….Im really mad that they disabled Project Playlist add-ins over a pretext ( aka BULLSHItt to get rid of the better competition). My project playlist was very cool, and possible music supply was way better.
All well & good but I’m in the UK where the majority of the MySpace music features are not available.
Considering the latest usage data against facebook, myspace will need all the innovation it can get. That being said, at least it’s making money. With all the data security issues and privacy concerns lately, I research new sites that I might have digital security questions regarding with this* site.
I think it’s still pretty much a zero sum game – having 5,000,000 bands or artists on a site differentiates none of those acts in any real way from each other. Myspace is very generic, there are much better individual sites that cater to interested fans.
I think it will grow further considering the huge userbase and some other factors.
there’s this new hot artist feature that shows label, indie and unsigned bands. it’s a start. they need to show popular bands and music by friends. hopefully that will come sometime soon.
So when is MySpace gonna make it a possibility to change your personal profile into a music one without so much hassle?!?!
I hate the new Myspace MP3 player. I liked the old one better, because Safari users could download the MP3 by copying the link in the Activities window.
HOW DO YOU GET MUSIC FOR MY SPACE
I am a promoter and i used to use myspace to look for bands in my local area, now i can’t seem to figure out how to search/browse local bands by genre. this new myspace music is all about big bands and big business. R.I.P music
Myspace is falling off the earth, into space. They just need to clean up their messy layout and make a better interface…with a few superstars supporting them and a commercial, they may be back into business. I prefer facebooks basic and now joined the twitter craze as I study social media. Check out my amazingly designed twitter page and join my group on facebook
twitter@elucidmarketing FOLLOW ME!
Tunesavvy.com is a social-networking website for musicians and entertainment seekers.
Has everyone seemed to forget that facebook has a problem with lawsuits ranging from theft to property rights disputes? They also seem to have a bad habit of copying your conversations that you have on any private IM and logging other psersonal info and storing it. there have been instances of selling this info to employers and others for a fee. All this info is available on the net if anyone wants to GOOGLE it.