The website, which has been losing users over the last year in the UK,
according to the latest Nielsen data, is actively repositioning itself as a
site which provides entertainment content – around which people can
socialise, as opposed to simply acting as a social network.
The UK arrival of MySpace Music has been highly
anticipated since the beginning of 2009, and sees the News
Corp-owned company today launch an advertising supported music and video
streaming service.
MySpace Music is co-owned by the four major music labels: EMI, Sony BMG,
Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. It also has commercial
arrangements in place with the major independent labels and the Performing
Rights Society - which represents 65,000 of the UK’s songwriters, composers
and music publishers.
MySpace Music’s president, Courtney Holt, said that there would be millions of
tracks available to stream, but declined to name a specific figure – as well
as 10s of thousands of music videos provided by the labels. There will also
be original video content available, which will be generated by MySpace, as
well as any video material uploaded by artists to their personal MySpace
profile pages.
People do not need a MySpace account to listen to music via the offering, but
if they wish to create playlists or share content with other MySpace users,
they will need to create an account.
The service is advertising-supported but there will be no audio adverts at
launch – only display adverts which will surround the music player and
pre-rolls on all video content. This is in contrast to Spotify, one of the
most popular music streaming services in the UK, which does allow adverts to
interrupt the music if you are using the free version of the service.
Premium subscribers, who pay £9.99 a month for Spotify, have the adverts
switched off.
MySpace Music’s player is also browser based, which means users do not have to
download a separate piece of software to use the service. All playlists and
personal information are stored in the cloud. There are mobile plans in the
offing, however MySpace declined to disclose any more details at this stage.
Mr Holt, who previously worked at MTV Networks as executive vice president of
digital music for the Music & Logo Group, defended the delay of the UK
launch, saying: “The UK has always been a priority market for MySpace –
however I wanted to make sure I got the product right before launching here
and had all the commercial licences in place. There may have been some
historic promises made before I joined in January [2009] but I am confident
the product will now speak for itself in the UK.”
MySpace Music joins a growing list of ad-funded digital music services, such
as Spotify, Last.fm and We7, but Mr Holt believes the service offers
something totally different and has not launched too late to make an impact
in what is an increasingly crowded marketplace: “There is no direct rival
offering in the UK. I think we are offering a lot more than other services
with our original content, artist
tools, audio and video content, playlist and social networking tools
and browser based player,” he explained.
Stuart Dredge, editor of music industry blog, Music Ally, said: “MySpace Music
has been really popular in the US with consumers – but the question for the
music industry will be whether it can make any money. The streaming model is
still unproven and there have been some questions already in the US about
its economic viability.
“MySpace has always had a strong music heritage and it’s good that its
building on that but people will compare the user experience with Spotify.
Its popularity levels will totally rely upon its usability compared to other
services. However, I don’t think this launch will be the only thing the
company can rely upon to save its declining numbers – but music is a
sensible place to start.”
According to the latest UK Nielsen figures, MySpace attracted 3.5 million
unique users in October 2009, which is a decline of 39 per cent year on
year. It attracted 5.8 unique users during the same month in 2008. However,
Facebook’s monthly number of unique users continues to grow and outstrip
MySpace’s figures. In October 2009, the site attracted 23 million users in
the UK, which was a 50 per cent increase year on year. Last October it
attracted 15.4 million users.
Owen Van Natta, MySpace’s chief executive, told The Telegraph, in
an exclusive
interview, that he was refocusing the site and differentiating its
offering from Facebook’s.
"Facebook is about core communications with your friendship network,
whereas MySpace is about congregating around popular content with people who
share your interests,” he explained.
MySpace, he said, is now a platform where people socialise around content and
he hopes will become the place where people find and share music, TV, film
and games content.
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