Sitting in my ‘daytime office’ (my everyday 9-5) I heard the usual ‘ding’ come from my iPhone to let me know I had received a personal email.
Taking a quick glance to see if it was anything important (I have this insane addiction to adding my email onto just about every website that I visit, therefore resulting in a fair few emails a day) I noticed an event guide for this (last) weekend in Perth. Scanning quickly through the email the following sentence made me double glance:
‘Does the new MySpace make sense to you? Us neither (yet) but it looks kinda cool…’
Whhhhaaat? The new MySpace? Seriously – didn’t that collapse when Facebook took over the world?
Immediately I checked out myspace.com and got a little confused. It still looked the same as it did the last time I visited the website… So off I went on my journey to find out exactly what had changed and why? Searching for the ‘new Myspace’ provided me with an array of different news articles and videos about how (the one and only) Justin Timberlake had bought the old MySpace for (just a mere) $35M!
While watching the (2-minute 18-second) promotional video I was taken on a tour into an image heavy overview of the new design and shown a much more sophisticated layout, compared to the out-dated ‘cluttered and busy’ old MySpace (which was founded in 2003) . In the background an apology themed song (‘Heartbeat’ – JJAMZ) is played to the viewers who are also informed that connection using their pre-existing accounts with Twitter or Facebook will be accepted – many believing that this is a sign it will not be competing with the sites that overtook the original website in April 2008.
Going with MySpace being an ‘entertainment’ based place to play and discover music, add and share photos, videos, playlists and connect with favourite artists it is not surprising that (Justin) Timberlake, who is renowned for connection with his fans, is one half of the companies new owners. Timberlake – who features prominently in the advertising video – will most likely play an immense part of the upgrade. Well known, the former N*Sync lead singer – with a group of other investors – bought MySpace last year for $35M (compared to the cool $580M that the former owners paid in 2005)
With the social media and marketing industry always looking for the next biggest and best way to promote themselves, it is uninspiring to view that the new MySpace website copies already established social media sites with regards to communication, connection and productivity.
Online research has shown that the majority of American companies (with Australia closely following) have favoured engagement with customers and clients through social media platforms like FB, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Unsurprisingly, Facebook is the most popular platform with 74% of high-end businesses using it. The social network narrowly beat out LinkedIn, which is used by 73%. Twitter rounds out the top three with 64%.
With MySpace once ruling the social networking sites it remains to be seen if the new upgrade, which has been described as a ‘visual combination of Facebook’s timeline and Pinterest’ will be enough to save the troubled site.
No date as yet for when the new MySpace will be launched, only that it is starting ‘totally from scratch’ and that it is ‘not ready quite yet’ which is enough information to keep this social networking diva intrigued.
