MySpace finally finds a home alongside the NME

Oh, MySpace. Yes, it's still going, just about, and it's just been sold on again - I'm imagining at a car boot sale, in a box along with twenty old LPs and a broken lamp, under the "give me two quid and the lot's yours, pal."

Viant, the current owner of the site, has just been bought by Time Inc. The Guardian reports:

Though MySpace is a shadow of its former self, Viant claims to have data from 1 billion registered users. Time and Viant say they plan to combine that data with its own subscriber information, providing it with a pool of data which it claims “rivals industry leaders Facebook and Google”.

Buying MySpace for its user data is a bit like buying an empty milk bottle to discover what cows smell like. Unless Time is going to be fine-tuning all its content to appeal to Tom.

Minaj: The Nazis were artistic nazis

The man who put together Nicki Minaj's nazi video has issued a statement:

Before I start, be clear that these are my personal views and not the views of Nicki Minaj, Drake, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, or Young Money.

First, I’m not apologizing for my work, nor will I dodge the immediate question. The flags, armbands, and gas mask (and perhaps my use of symmetry?) are all representative of Nazism.

But a majority of the recognizable models/symbols are American: MQ9 Reaper Drone, F22 Raptor, Sidewinder missile, security cameras, M60, SWAT uniform, General’s uniform, the Supreme court, and the Lincoln Memorial. What’s also American is the 1st Amendment, which I’ve unexpectedly succeeded in showing how we willfully squeeze ourselves out of that right every day.

Despite the fact heavy religious and economic themes were glossed over, there’s also Russian T-90 tanks, Belgian FN FAL, German mp5 (not manufactured until 1966), an Italian Ferrari, and a Vatican Pope.

As far as an explanation, I think its actually important to remind younger generations of atrocities that occurred in the past as a way to prevent them from happening in the future. And the most effective way of connecting with people today is through social media and pop culture. So if my work is misinterpreted because it’s not a sappy tearjerker, sorry I’m not sorry. What else is trending?

First of all: "Sorry not sorry"? Is it still 2012 in America?

Jeff Osborne, the artist who directed the “Only” lyric video, issued a statement via MySpace

Oh. I suppose if you're still using MySpace, "sorry not sorry" must seems as new and astonishing as the first time someone from Britain came face-to-face with kangaroo.

Still, it's nice to have that clarified. It's not about Nazi Nazis, it's just 'hey, aren't all regimes a little bit nazi-like, have you ever thought that OMG it's so obvious when you think about it and aren't CCTV cameras just jackboots attached to walls, right?' Nazis.

It's not unusual for Godwin's Law to apply in YouTube comments. There's more than a few piece-to-camera YouTube videos where it can be invoked. I think, though, this might be the first time Godwin can be pressed into service for a lyric video.

Hey, Jeff, here's one for you: why don't you take a picture of Obama, right, and put a little moustache on him? SEE IF PEOPLE CAN HANDLE THAT TRUTH.

Myspace: It's back. Your stuff isn't, but it is.

Hey, everyone. MySpace is out of beta. Of its second or third incarnation. Or is it fourth? One loses track.

Still, the precarious business of relaunch is upon them, and surely they'll be making sure that the few existing users who've kept faith with the site through the lean years will be given the smoothest, easiest transition to the new look. After all, you don't want to piss off your most loyal community, do you?

Hang about... can anyone smell burning?

MySpace... you didn't chuck the blogs on the fire, did you?

Oh.

Pirate_Molly
Is it possible to give us access to our old blogs so that we can save them? I used Myspace as a travel blog while living abroad and would really love to have that content before it's deleted. :(

4hits
I agree, with ELAYEEMARIE I want my page that I had for years and worked on to make it me... MY SPACE was what it meant !!! A special place for me and my friends to share. " A PLACE FOR FRIENDS" was the objective. My page was like my Cyber home, it had a unique look and feel. The videos I had added would always give me a quick pick me up when I or my friends needed them. Our messages and comments that held importants to us cannot be replaced with music promotions or other usless commercials that you seem to think is what your true users want. What in the world would make you change this ? Money ! I think having the choice to open either or was fine, but if its gone, so am I... Thanks for the memories, goodluck

_stray_
You don't warn us and then take away blogs and private messages? There were things I wanted to keep from there! I would have logged it all on my computer if I had known, but to do this with no warning?!

And on and on it goes. Adding insult to the very real injury, all these long-standing MySpace users are being given a status indicator on their names which makes them look like they've just turned up:

Blithely unaware of what the problem is, MySpace grin and explain how having a decade or so of your life wiped is a GRATE NEW FEATURE:

We're focused on building the best Myspace possible. And to us, that means helping you discover connect and share with others using the best tools available. Going forward we're concentrating on building and maintaining the features that make those experience better. That means you won't see a few products on the new site...

Blogs
Private Messages
Videos
Comments or Posts
Custom background design
Games
We know that this is upsetting to some but it gives us a chance to really concentrate on creating a new experience for discovery and expression. Feel free to hit the Me Too button if you have similar questions so we can track your needs and concerns.

Yeah, you know those very things that kept you coming back to MySpace all this time? You were like a schmuck. It'd be better if you had never done all of that, it meant your experience was bad.

Amongst the stuff that has gone, MySpace has wiped irreplaceable memories:

campbellshoney
I would like to know about this too, plus my old blogger friends, of whom two have now passed on. I came back to Myspace just to read their blogs from time to time!

There's a slogan for you, MySpace: "The place that exorcises your friends".

The idea that you can build a new service which relies on interaction by demonstrating that you can't be trusted with those interactions is a curious one.

So, what have they built on the smouldering embers of the old site? It's a bit like a poor man's Tumblr except - USP AHOY - they've gone with left-to-right scrolling instead of up-and-down. I know, innovative, right?

It feels like just another glossy, fawning pop site; the use of "my" seemingly ironic as the aim is to be a mediated layer between the-celebs-who-will-be-part-of-it-at-least-until-the-stats-are-shared and the plebs.

Seriously, though: that left-right scrolling? Did you do any user testing where that was hailed as a good idea?

Gordon in the morning: Brits adds Timberlake

Gordon is excited this morning by the news that Justin Timberlake will be playing the Brits.

Gordon describes Timberlake as "excellent value at awards shows", which sounds like the sort of thing you'd stick on a weak CV that needed a bit of fattening up - probably underneath "Photoshop Elements trained" but above "Cub scout troop leader [2003-2004]".

The rest of the world is filtering this news as "extended advert for MySpace's latest spluttering relaunch planned for ITV".

Merlin threatens to do to MySpace what Merlin did to Morgana

Merlin, the group which negotiates rights deals on behalf of thousands of small and medium-sized labels, is accusing MySpace of using songs to which it has no right.

Merlin's deal with MySpace expired about a year ago, and yet, oddly, over 100 of its labels have still got their music being used by the site. The New York Times reports that MySpace is blaming its members:

Neda Azarfar, a spokeswoman for Myspace, said the company had decided not to renew its contract with Merlin, and that if songs from its member labels were still on the site, “they were likely uploaded by users” and would be removed if requested by the label.

Really? MySpace "users" did it? Why not blame something more likely to actually exist, like "a unicorn did it"?

But if we accept that Azarfar is guessing correctly - and wouldn't you have checked, rather than guessing, if it had been you? - isn't this a pretty terrible line for MySpace to be putting out to the music industry partners it desperately needs to court?

MySpace: a place where people are sticking any old copyright-breeching material online, and we don't really keep an eye on what they're doing.

Now, remind me what the RIAA usually says about such business plans.

MySpace have a plan

MySpace is the Rye of social networks, the thriving port whose harbour long since silted up and no longer sees the boats coming. But it has a plan; it's about to relaunch again, and to focus on music, again. And it has Justin Timberlake onboard, hoping that nobody will point out that he was buzzy before Tom was friending everyone.

Why the focus on Timberlake? Even if he was an example of the smaller band trying to build a fanbase who MySpace hope to attract, everyone knows he's sunk a wedge of cash into the project. Every time he goes "it's great", the audience thinks "you're flogging me your product" rather than "that's an independent review."

MySpace think they have something to offer in 2012, as MusicAlly reports:

“The promise of discovery and sharing new, good music was never really fulfilled by other services out there,” Tim tells The Guardian, while flagging up its streaming catalogue of 42m tracks from major, indie and unsigned artists.

Analytics to help make sense of fanbases will be a key part of Myspace’s pitch to woo back those artists (and management/labels).

“Artists are really tired of sending their fans over to one platform to listen to music, another to watch a social stream, and others watch videos, buy merchandise or purchase tickets,” says Tim. “They really are just looking for a home, and we try to be that for artists.”

Are artists really tired of that? And even if they were, couldn't they embed videos and purchase boxes into Facebook?

Isn't the fundamental problem here that MySpace are saying 'artists are tired to maintaining several sites, so we're going to help by introducing another site they have to maintain'?

And while wonderful analytics are a great thing to offer, they're bugger all use if there's no audience on the site to analyse.

Ah! But MySpace have a plan:

The new Myspace will be opening up in beta to more users, who’ll then be able to invite some friends (aka The Gmail Launch Strategy). Journalists are in already.

The trouble with trying to sell MySpace like Gmail is that when Google launched its mail service, it was brand new, and shiny. Everyone was excited and desperate to be let in.

Who is desperate to see what the new MySpace looks like?

Are there any 'opinion formers' who would really want to risk ridicule by sliding over to their friends offering secret passes to MySpace?

More to the point, what drives social platforms is numbers. Why would anyone spend time crafting a new MySpace site if it can only be accessed by a chosen few? And if people don't build sites, what will be there when the doors are opened to all?

More importantly, building a secret MySpace behind a big wall and only letting in a few journalists isn't really cherishing those few MySpace users who have kept faith with the site while the rest of the world has gone elsewhere. Not only are you telling them that they've been wasting their time on a wrong site; not only are you destroying their neighbourhood; but you're leaving them entirely locked out of the process.

In design terms, the rollout plan is as garish as any of those flashing colour-clashed pages that marked out MySpace back when it was famous.

Is MySpace on the way back? Up to a point

There's a lot of excitement about the supposed one million new users since December MySpace is trumpeting.

So, is it on the way back?

Hmm. Kind-of.

First, these "million new users" are actually new account registrations, mainly driven through people signing up through Facebook. It's plausible some (most? all?) are actually people with existing, lapsed accounts for whom creating a fresh MySpace log-in is preferable to trying to remember old passwords.

Second, they're signing up to use the music player via Facebook. That doesn't mean they're not engaging with MySpace, but the product they're using is something different from the old MySpace. Not a problem for the new owners, but 'new service signs up users' isn't quite the same as the 'MySpace comes back' angle we're being fed.

Third: 'registered new users' is an interesting choice of metric. Not even the number of users, or active users: people could still be flowing away, or launching a new account, using it once and moving on.

Finally, a lot of users could be a problem rather than a blessing. If people engage with that free-to-user, expensive-to-company music through a box on a page around which Facebook are selling highly targeted adverts, there's going to be a problem making ends meet.

Still, that's all for the future: for now, something with the same name as a defunct social network finally has a positive figure to announce. Let's hit the Like button. Did MySpace have a Like button?

Pushing MySpace was a mistake when it was my space

Michael Jones was in charge of MySpace during its last days as part of the Murdoch empire - you'll recall, he was the man who tried to turn it from being a hollaback horrorshow into a music destination.

He's now admitted that he was flogging a hippo carcass:

A year ago, we executed one of the most significant relaunches of a historical Internet brand. We repositioned Myspace as a social entertainment destination and introduced an entirely new technology platform, new products and refreshed content. However, the new Myspace didn't gain as much traction with consumers as we had hoped.

The reasons for this? He's quite upfront about it. He had a toxic brand:

We chose to keep the Myspace brand. This was a mistake. We found that regardless of how much we improved the product or the marketing message –– consumers' memories about the brand were too strong to allow them to view Myspace with fresh eyes and an open mind. We could not escape their images of animated GIFs.

It could be argued that with more time and more marketing dollars, we might have been able to change users' perceptions of Myspace.

Perhaps if your team focused your efforts on promoting your message rather than leaving arsey comments on blogs which suggested your offering was weak, you might have done better.

But then... the offering was weak, too:

Myspace Music has always had a strong brand affiliation with entertainment. Its popular Secret Shows franchise -- a series of free concerts with top artists exclusively for Myspace users -- helped to create an incredible bridge between online and offline experiences and established a certain brand tone in consumers' minds. With the relaunch, we sought to capture the essence of Myspace Music and expand it to other entertainment categories on the site.

I think Michael's wrong here; what he really discovered was that even the shittiest stick will be grabbed if there's enough spangles on off; people came away from MySpace gigs thinking they were great despite, not because of, MySpace's involvement.

However, where Myspace came up short was on utility -- that is, we didn't have a product that compelled users to come to the site every day, something that had true-long lasting utility for consumers.

That's right. People tend to only listen to music once or twice a week.

No, really: if you believe you're the place to go for music, then most people will be popping by whenever they fancy a tune. You had utility; it's just there were better offerings elsewhere that weren't quite so MySpacey.

Mike then indulges in a spot of "boo-hoo, people didn't realise how great we were" sobbing:

As of August 2010, Myspace was interacting with over 100 million users a month, generating billions of page views and streaming hundreds of millions of songs. Yet, despite these incredible metrics, the market value for Myspace was far below the value placed on many other smaller, yet similar, businesses.

I don't want to sound like that woman off the show which tried to sell unsellable houses but a business is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. Your business isn't a billion dollar business if people will only pay a million for it. Values of businesses are all made-up anyway. Yours was just made-up in the wrong way.

Jones seems convinced that a few changes - along with more time to overcome the "entrenched" problems of the existing MySpace staff and the "single point of failure" of having one URL - that there was something at the heart of MySpace which had value. Its new owners seem to also be struggling to find any such point.

MySpace CEO: Exciting news - you're fired

Techcrunch has got hold of the email MySpace staff were just sent (what, didn't Mike Jones think that posting an update on his MySpace profile would be good enough?)

From: Mike Jones
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 11:26 AM
To: Myspace All
Subject: IMPORTANT COMPANY NEWS
Importance: High

Myspacers,

Today, we are announcing that Myspace will be acquired by Specific Media, one of the world’s leading online media and advertising platforms. Over the next few days you will be hearing from the team at Specific, including their CEO, Tim Vanderhook, regarding their exciting plans for Myspace and how it fits in with the overall vision of their company.

In conjunction with the deal, we are conducting a series of restructuring initiatives, including a significant reduction in our workforce. I will assist Specific with the transition over the next two months before departing my role as Myspace CEO.

I wanted to take a minute to thank you all for the incredible experience it has been to lead this company and to work closely with all of you over the past several years. While I regret we won’t be working together at Myspace any longer, I am very proud of the work we have done here and believe we have performed with excellence – even under extremely difficult circumstances.

My time here at Myspace represents the most engaging and challenging time of my professional career. I have found our team to be comprised of the best people I have come across in our industry.

You can read the press release below. Once again, thank you for all of your hard work and dedication.

Thanks,

-M

It's not clear, but I suspect Mike's exciting severance package will be better than that of the other exciting people losing their jobs in the exciting plans that Specific have.

MySpace finds a new home

According to reports, Rupert Murdoch and News International have offloaded MySpace to Specific Media.

They're mainly an advertising outfit; apparently they've paid $35million for somewhere between 90 and 95 per cent of the site.

It's not entirely apparent that Specific have any specific plans for the music wing of the failing social network.

Even MySpace's parents don't care about their kid any more

You know who else is following the herd narrative on MySpace? The people who created MySpace. Bloomberg Business Week kicks the corpse:

"After we left, the guys that took over were never Myspace users," says [Former MySpace CEO Chris] DeWolfe, who now runs a startup called MindJolt. "They didn't have it in their DNA."
[...]
DeWolfe still has a Myspace page, but he doesn't check it much. When he does, he says, he cringes. "I'm a little disappointed in the music product, given that we spent so much time and effort to get more music licenses than anyone in the world. I haven't seen Myspace Music evolve how it should have."

It's noteworthy that DeWolfe implies that there's still a way that MySpace music could solve the site's problems. It's equally noteworthy that DeWolfe might be involved with the bid to take MySpace off Rupert's hands.

News Corp finds potential buyer for MySpace pig-in-a-poke

It looks like Rupert Murdoch has found a shoulder to take most of the effort of shoring up MySpace: a shadowy investment group which may or may not include Bobby Kotick is apparently the only bidder left in the game. Mr Murdoch's All Things D reckons Kotick - who is not wearing his Activision CEO hat for this one - and his other investors will take on 80 per cent of the declining property for a figure much lower than the USD100million that News Corp were pretending it might be worth.

Apparently the deal could still "fall apart" at any moment - perhaps if the shadowy investors suddenly go "hang about - MySpace isn't the one with the Like button and Farmville at all, is it?"

Playing Kathleen Hanna on a triple-word score

From today, Grrl has become a valid Scrabble word.

It's not quite the honour and indication of a permanent place in the pantheon it might seem, though: MySpace has somehow got in, too.

Vevo - here we go

Apparently Vevo had never actually launched properly in the UK. It has now.

And, quite clearly, isn't going to be wasting money throwing it down the MySpace hole:

"When News Corp ring you take the call," [Chief executive Rio Caraeff] said, adding that there are no talks or plans involving MySpace on the table. "We are focussed on executing our current business model and not getting distracted."

Actually, News Corp called round ours last night, trying to offload MySpace (they were also selling dusters and buckets). I hid behind the sofa.

Fleet Foxes: MySpace is "useless"

Robin Pecknold has rolled frustration with a specific feature of MySpace into a pretty fair denunciation of where the decaying site went wrong.

At first, he was just annoyed about how anyone could add dates for Fleet Foxes and they'd show up on the band's profile:

"The myspace show thing is seriously fucked. People add us to shows and we can't delete it but shows up on our page. Your site does harm."

Then, a cry to be set free:

Can someone on the inside PLEASE mercy-kill our myspace page. We aren't opening for Take That. Jesus.

But, hey, it would be nice to be asked, right, Robin?

Robin tweeted all that. Spinner were happy to give him a bit more space to expand on his argument:

"It's just so frustrating that they won't delete our page. It's been months and it's just sad because I used to use MySpace to check out bands all the time and now it's completely useless.

"It's sad that they ended up totally shitting the bed. But nothing can be done at this point.

"It just stayed the same and as older people got more used to using the Internet, MySpace had nothing to offer them. Everyone's mom has a Facebook page but my mom never had a MySpace page. It's like they didn't account for the changing demographics of the Internet."

A social network dying because your parents didn't discover it. We're living in an internet ages of wonders, aren't we?

MySpace: It's not only Murdoch's newspapers that makes stuff up

Obviously, as Rupert Murdoch attempts to drag whatever money he can out of the MySpace storm drain, there's going to be a certain level of positive thinking put on the pitch. But now that Techcrunch has seen how far the brave face is being put on, the mystery is why they don't go the whole hog and try and pretend to a hapless tourist/businessman that they're going to sell them Facebook:

After 2011 the pitch book turns to pure fiction. After losing $165 million this year, they expect to actually have $15 million in ebitda in fiscal 2012. How? Revenue will decrease to $84 million, but expenses will fall from $274 million this year to just $69 million. The company will then be profitable, says the pitch book.

That means about $205 million would need to be found in operating cost savings in the next 14 months. That means even more massive layoffs. And yet somehow News Corp. argues that revenue will only fall 23% in the next year. Costs will decrease 75%, and revenue will fall just 23%.

Believable? Nope. But at least on paper it makes MySpace profitable.

I'm sure they've got some solid evidence to back this up, though. Perhaps it's "a pal of Rupert Murdoch says". Or simply "a source".

MySpace up for sale from Wednesday, says corporate sibling

The Wall Street Journal's All Things D reckons that, given that nobody is showing much interest, the process of dumping MySpace into the marketplace will start midweek.

In any case, whoever buys Myspace needs a lot of patience, which seems to have run out at News Corp., where top execs take turns bashing it to shareholders.

That’s no surprise. After a laudable though glacial redesign as a music and entertainment hub last fall, traffic has declined 44 percent in a recent month from a year ago, to 37.7 million unique visitors in the U.S.

Worse still, the News Corp. unit that houses Myspace showed an operating loss of $156 million in the recent quarter, mostly related to a severe drop-off of advertising revenue at the site.

That plunge in fortunes will surely have an impact on the price buyers are willing to pay for the once iconic brand.

It's possible that the end result will be a partnership with NewsCorp - which is like having joint ownership of a hungry but unlovable dog which used to be a really cute puppy.

Or they'll just give the site to the first person to renew their Times digital subscription. Anything could happen.

MySpace: You can't expect lots of visitors in a little month

Against a background of mutterings about a possible merger with Vevo, the team in charge of MySpace desperately try to keep up spirits and value.

Mike Jones, CEO, talks to Business Insider and tries to explain the collapsing audience figures:

BI: When I look at MySpace traffic charts, just from ComScore or any of the outside auditors, it looks like a crumbling mess – a halving year-over-year situation. What numbers are you guys looking at to have a more optimistic picture? Please explain.

MJ: That's a fair question. First, February was a short month where we and a lot of other sites were impacted.

Yes, Mike. February 2011 was a short month. I'm pretty certain Febuary 2010 was also pretty short, too, so how does that explain a year-on-year fall?

Still, next year there's an extra day in February. Something to cling too.

Jones then tries to explain how 'audience tumbling away' is actually some sort of delicate rebalancing act:

In addition to that, we have an expected audience shift. We launched a new product in November, we've substantially changed the value proposition for our audience, and we expect that we're going to be changing the nature of our registered userbase, which is something that's been impacting us on our monthly metric basis.

What Comscore doesn't necessarily capture for us is the internal metrics that show success against the strategy.

What Jones appears to be saying is that because fewer people are coming, that's making the visitor numbers look bad.

But the strategy - oh, think of the strategy!

It doesn't show that we've roughly doubled our mobile traffic in the last few months because of products that we've offered on the mobile platforms.

Given the massive boom in the number of Smartphones, you'd expect a rise in mobile traffic. It does you little good if all you're doing is shifting what's left of your audience from one platform to another.

It doesn't show an increase around our content products.

The bits that are doing well are doing well.

I would say we're going into a new market that's an extremely large market of entertainment content. I think that we're migrating portions of our current audience against that strategy. We're attracting new audience against that strategy and we have a portion of our audience that's a legacy audience that has to decide whether they want to be a part of that strategy.

I think this sort of talk from the management - "you're part of our oldest audience, so shape up or ship out" - might be the reason why MySpace is broken.

MySpace: The herd departs

You know the problem with herd instincts? They tend to lead to herding.

So it is with MySpace - or Myunderscoreunderscoreunderscore as its logo would have it - as visitors vanish faster than that pile of cash Rupert Murdoch gave them:

There were almost 63 million users of MySpace in February 2011, down from more than 73 million.

Year on year the site has lost almost 50 million users, down from close to 110 million in February 2010.

MySpace are busy trying to spin this as good news:

MySpace boss Mike Jones has been putting a brave face on the falling numbers.

He said the site is no longer a social network and is instead an "entertainment destination".

Well, you can change a railway station into an art gallery, but if nobody comes to look at the pictures you're still sunk, aren't you?

MySpace Music decides to do without a President

Courtney Holt, who was president of MySpace Music, has decided to follow the herd and has stepped down from the role. He's not being replaced, either, with MySpace CEO Mike Jones taking responsibility for Music, too, which pretty much looks like a "keeping it going until someone takes it over or kills it off" position.

MySpace Music still does pretty good numbers in terms of visitors in the US, but hasn't been able to turn the ears into anything saleable; to add insult to injury, half-assed YouTube spin-off Vevo now outstrips it for visitors.