Myspace – once a haven for every single person with a hankering to be social online, and as of years ago, a wasteland populated only by bands and those who became slightly too attached to their top eight friends rotation schedule. However, after a considerable amount of re-branding (minus the famous Myspace Tom, having left after selling the company for millions), it’s back, and not only is it back, it’s actually quite impressive.
Some things never change
For starters, it retains its focus on music, which is a big deal given how many times it’s been proved that the platform was actually a viable means of being discovered and turning your band’s garage dream into a career. But in addition to the musical side of the site, it’s also looking towards general entertainment – games, television, celebrity culture, and so on.
This is a bold move, but one that makes a lot of sense, given that even the average movie clip on Facebook is simply a link to YouTube, and merging all media into a single site might not have a big impact on those viewing the content, but it will make things a lot easier for those producing it. Uploading the same video to at least two different sites and spreading promotional material throughout many more is time-consuming, but if Myspace succeeds and becomes the one-stop-shop for new media, businesses will take heed and suddenly Vimeo and other services may need to up their game in response.
Birds for the same feather flocks together
One of the incredible things about it is the sign-up process, and that’s not crazy talk, by any means. One of the first things it asks you is what you do – whether you’re a creative (one of many types, from musician to writer), or you’re a fan. It’s an easy way to instantly place fans in one category and content creators in another, and also clearly states what Myspace’s new purpose is – to connect creators and their fan-base, and provide them with an easy-to-use platform upon which to build it.
What lies ahead?
While it does have an obvious focus on music, it may in time introduce better means of providing fans with writing, film, art, and other media in order to cement its reputation as the go-to source of entertainment on the web. It certainly flies in the face of Facebook’s fan pages, but after so many years of absence, it’s unclear as to whether or not Myspace is going to be able to regain the traffic and reputation it had before Mark Zuckerberg’s social network began to dominate the internet.
However, unlike the samey-looking and slightly outdated feel of Facebook, Myspace happens to be an extremely nice looking site, and one very suited to touch – lots of scrolling panels and large buttons and clear text, which is a far cry from the almost claustrophobic feel of Myspace’s previous incarnation. With any luck, this won’t become another haunted house of a social media platform. Then again, this time, there’s no Facebook to do what it does. Right now, it’s the only game in town.