inapro.posthaven

like the musical artists it helped fans to celebrate, myspace seized fame as an early icon of social media. users found and shared with like-minded peers. new and established bands found a new channel for releasing music and communicating with their fan base. then, it faded away. sure, the audience was fickle. sure the site made missteps and lost its focus. and now, with fresh investors and poster comeback wannabe justin timberlake leading the way, myspace is launching its bid to get back in the spotlight. 

if you haven't seen the teaser video for the relaunch, here it is:

The new Myspace from Myspace on Vimeo.

I'm a music fan. but I'm an older one, so I missed the myspace bus the last time round, other than occasionally finding a cool richard buckner track there or something. this writeup was triggered by a post in one of my facebook groups that was itself a reposting on an article on the culture-ist: "will myspace bring sexy back to the social media stage?" despite the lameass title - social media has been and remains all about the sexy - the article does a good job highlighting the goods and the bads of the as yet un-relaunched relaunch. here is an excerpt describing two cool features of the new myspace:  

Like Facebook, there’s a “friend” button attached to an artist, but unlike Facebook, Myspace isn’t built on exclusivity. When you “friend” an artist there’s no awkward wait time when you angst about whether or not your invitation’s going to be accepted or not. Connections are automatically established at the click of a button. There’s less of a fluctuating social hierarchy. Once you’ve connected to your favorite artist, you’re able to keep track of their updates in case they put out new songs or are about to embark on a world tour, but the really cool part is you’ll also get to keep track of what your favorite artist is listening to. So, the next time you’re listening to a track and your friend asks you, “Who is this new folksy band?” You can nonchalantly say something along the lines of, “Oh this? This is ________. Rihanna introduced me to them.”

One feature that has been getting a lot of press attention (and it’s easy to see why) is the opportunity and possibility for fans to see their profile publicized on their favorite artist’s page as a #1 fan, which not only gives them bragging rights, but also a chance to be recognized by one of their favorite artists; it’s very similar to getting  retweeted by your favorite celebrity. These personalized touches and virtual interactions might make Myspace a prominent platform  among the social media landscape.

I was the first to comment on the posted article on linkedin:

 the 'new' myspace looks like a combination of pinterest and facebook. they have one big advantage - a database of users from back in the day. that is diminished somewhat by the age of their prinary demo - young ppl tend to cycle email addresses as they progress. can they recapture the music crowd? I think maybe if they partner with some big players and every soundcloud out there and function as a distribution hub for other social channels so casual users don't need to GO to myspace to benefit.

I'm one of those users, so I did get the announcement and that prompted me to look at the press coverage, and I will certainly try out the service when it goes live. so friend me or something. 

The Re-Undiscovered Country?

In actuality, I’m sure some social media gurus still use MySpace quite frequently.

I just don’t happen to know any of them.

Some of the companies I work with still have MySpace profiles, but they’ve basically been left for dead.  Someone checks on them once a month to see if they’re still breathing, but otherwise, they get minimal attention compared to Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

Why is this, exactly?

I mean, I remember when I personally quit MySpace because it had become a festering cesspool of porn spam and bad design, but I’m an elitist.  The benefit I was getting from MySpace was microscopic compared to the effort required to simply maintain a spam-free presence there.

So I quit.

And I bet a lot of you did the same.

And I bet Scott Ludwig is right: none of us know what MySpace offers these days, or at least not enough of us to convince everyone else that MySpace could possibly be worth adopting again.

And yet, there sit 44 million people, just aching to be marketed to by your crack team of social media experts.

Surely your messaging techniques have advanced well beyond the rudimentary tasks MySpace allowed you to execute in 2007 [which is the last time most people I know admitted they even had a MySpace profile].

So what’s stopping you from carving out that lucrative niche as a MySpace specialist?  Or at least re-incorporating MySpace into your toolbox?

Simple: we’re all waiting for someone else to tell us we can.

Pipe Down; I’m Not Done Shunning You Yet

Nobody has the time to re-master MySpace because we’re all invested in the same tools everyone else is using.

If nobody’s talking about MySpace, there’s no buzz bandwagon to benefit from.  There’s no SEO juice.  There’s no community of peers, and there’s no cool factor that comes with belonging to the same group everyone else is in.

Which, of course, makes it ripe for wildly profitable niche exploiters.

Maybe “MySpace” will become the reheated buzzword of 2010.

Maybe we’ll reclaim that territory and help it matter again.

Or maybe… if you’re really thinking outside the box…

… Friendster.