“There’s a need for a place where fans can go to interact with their favorite entertainers, listen to music, watch videos, share and discover cool stuff and just connect. MySpace has the potential to be that place” - Timberlake.
Back it its heyday, Myspace Music was the trendy, cutting edge go-to site to interact with both established and unsigned artists. Lily Allen and My Chemical Romance are just two of the many who effectively used the platform to launch their careers. Fast forward to 2011 and the site is losing a million users per month, with fans now preferring to interact with artists over a range of different platforms - Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc...
It seems logical to merge this fragmented social media presence into one platform a la JT's Myspace 2.0, but is it possible? Facebook attempted this with it's BandPage link -
However users have found it clunky, slow and not interactive.
Apple then gave it a shot with iTunes Ping, where "your music is more social. Join the conversation, and follow your favorite artists and find out what your friends are listening to with iTunes Ping".
Again, users have complained of functionality and navigation issues, as well as a lack of communication with peers. These are just two of the several sites attempting to offer the ultimate music experience.
So this begs the question, do fans want an all-in-one platform to consume and share music and no one has got it right yet? Or are fans happier with a more fragmented, multi-platform experience?
Perhaps the best way to answer this is just simply to ask what you use to interact with your favourite artists. Are you still a MySpace music fan, or have you steered towards Twitter, Facebook, and/or YouTube to get your fix?
Leave your comments below!
I'll occasionally check out a songs I like or that friends have provided a YouTube link for on facebook. This Goyte and Kimbra song is a fave at the moment Somebody That I Used To Know It's already had over a million views!
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
ReplyDeleteI really wonder if people will move *BACK* to Myspace? Haven't most of us outgrown it, and to start using it again would be seen as a backward step? They really have to totally rebrand and rebadge it, I believe, to make it viable again.
Yeah I agree, total rebranding is essential. Basically, Myspace = 2006. I'm also not sold that one platform can provide all the interaction a user wants, and they are happy to spread their browsing over different platforms to get a sense of a more rounded interaction with the music/artist.
ReplyDeleteHubba my intial exposure to that song was purely through social media too! No.1 on iTunes purely though word-of-mouth, no traditional media exposure needed!
Enter Google! Fast forward to 2014 and this fragmentation of social media platforms have disappeared because we will all be in someone else's circle on G+, listening and interacting with our favourite bands in our "bands circle". According to me, myspace is dead and soon something will replace it, will have better functionalities and would have solved all the issues that consumers have complained about. As per both your comments Craig and Wags, a complete rebrand will be necessary to revitalise this dinosaur.
ReplyDeleteRoss