Myspace is Back and Looking to Dominate the Creative Sphere

By Zac Bluestone

Myspace is back…and with a vengeance. Having officially launched last Wednesday, propelled by massive celebrity endorsements and a $20 million ad campaign across broadcast, cable, radio, and digital properties, Myspace looks to rebuild its dominance in social media, but this time, with its focus in music sphere.

You can watch the ad campaign here:

[youtube id="RB1HLmAXi8U" width="600" height="350"]

Potential Advantages

Not only does the new Myspace appeal to musicians, but it also seeks to dominate the creative sphere, connecting songwriters, journalists, photographers, videographers, and artists of all sorts in an interconnected social stratosphere that cleverly links existing multimedia and social media platforms. Perhaps the biggest advantage to the Myspace platform is the updated and simplified iOS app that allows easy access to write posts and “create”, even featuring a GIF maker.

Importantly, it looks as though mobile will fuel their social platform and drive the user experience and growth of the website. In order to succeed as a music service, they must first satisfy this social network need, which, at first glance, they definitely have. Importantly, while Facebook and Twitter dominate the social network sphere, the pecking order for digital music services is not set in stone, allowing a huge opportunity for Myspace.

Challenges

While Myspace will likely generate a significant user-base through its ad campaign, the fact remains that Myspace is competing in a very crowded field, and may be too late to the game to lead the domain. Particularly, with MyRadio, Myspace will find itself in a highly competitive Internet-radio marketplace, where waves of new entrants (such as Apple) seek to uproot successful companies such as Pandora.

What’s more, as Myspace chief creative officer Keith Tilford acknowledged, the company does have an “existing brand issue.” They are hoping the massive ad campaign will help with this.

User Experience

In order to move from the intangible to the tangible, I signed up for Myspace to see what it was all about.

After spending some time on the site, labeling myself as a “Musician,” “DJ/Producer,” “Writer,” and “Promoter” (you get to choose four), on first look, I like it. The site flows nicely, is intuitive, and allows you to easily access any creative individual you would need. It’s as easy as filling in a few search criteria. For example, if I was an electronic music producer and wanted to find a photographer for a photo-shoot, or a graphic designer to assist with album art, or a promoter to help with an upcoming show, I can easily search through the Myspace database to find what I need. Perhaps the most useful part is that you can refine the search to a specific zip code.

While only time will tell, it does appear that Myspace has a lot to offer musicians and all creative individuals alike. It surpasses the musician-to-musician connection dynamic, and sees the bigger picture, allowing any entrepreneurial artist expansive opportunities to connect with each other. However, while it does possess these benefits, it is more designed as a social stratosphere than a music promotion platform. For example it is hard to believe its service would replace that of Soundcloud and Youtube as listening platforms. Though, it will surely augment them.

Like all music social media platforms, the more artists join, the more potential to create and thus an exponential growth in activity. And if you are like every other starving artist out there, using another social media platform can only help to expand your network.

Myspace is Back and Looking to Dominate the Creative Sphere

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