The new MySpace: a mix of Pinterest, Metro, and Justin Timberlake
MySpace is still a big website on the Internet. It is nowhere near as big as it has been, thanks to the rise of sites like Facebook or Google Plus, but it is still big in absolute terms.
The site was on a decline ever since users started to use Facebook as their go-to site for all things social. Still, if you look at the Alexa traffic rank of Myspace.com, you will notice that it is one of the top 200 sites in the world. According to Wikipedia, MySpace had 25 million unique U.S. visitors in June 2012.
In June 2011, Justin Timberlake and Specific Media Group acquired MySpace for $35 million, a considerable drop from the $580 million that News Corporation paid for the social networking site in 2005.
One of the first things the new owners started to work on? A re-design and relaunch of MySpace. If you visit new.myspace.com you won't see much right now, only a form to receive an invite for the new MySpace, and a teaser video that is highlighting how the new MySpace will look like when it launches. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, here are some impressions of the redesign.
The news stream looks similar to how things are displayed on Pinterest, only that the items seem to be aligned horizontally instead of vertically on MySpace.
If that reminds you of Windows 8 and Metro then you are not far off I guess.
The new friends / connections screen with large profile photos of each of your friends on MySpace.
If you are running a fan page, you benefit from the new statistics screen where you see information about your audience, and the most influential fans.
The video is well done, watch it below to see the full teaser.
The redesign looks modern and fresh, but will it be enough for MySpace to turn things around and become profitable again? What's your take on this? Will you try out the site when it launches or migrate your account to the new design, or stick with what you have and ignore yet another social site / relaunch instead?
I’m excited for I spend a lot of my time listening to music.
I won’t switch. I don’t even use the G+ or Twitter accounts i have more than twice a month, and it took a combination of Adblock+ and Social Fixer to make Facebook barely tolerable. I get more out of Google Reader. No Myspace for me.
Hi, I was recording a project through my soundcard on my pc. I read my feeds through Google Reader. As I was scrolling through my feeds this video started playing automatically ruining my recording session :( . Is this kind of behavior normal or necessary in a feed post.? I don’t think i’ve ever encountered this before. Or is it a setting I should change in my browser ? I’m using Opera. I know you are an Opera expert ;). I looked in settings Advanced – Content – “enable sound in webpages” do I need to turn that off maybe ?. I’m quiet sure this doesn’t happen when I scroll pass other video content. I usually have to actually click on a video to start watching it.
I’m not on Myspace by the way or Facebook for that matter lol.
I like your posts though. Very good quality articles….
That’s because this video has autoplay set to 1, starting to play automatically once loaded.
Kind of annoying really, but should be an easy fix.
PS: Keep up your good work Martin : )
Did not notice that, just copied the embed code. Should be fixed now, sorry for the issue.