The new MySpace is here
The last couple of years were a rough time for the social networking site MySpace. Once the most popular social networking site available on the Internet, users started to leave it in shiploads to join competing services like Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus. While it still managed to keep a sizable amount of users and a top spot as one of the top 250 or so sites in the world, it never managed to catch up with its main competitor Facebook.
MySpace was sold in 2011 for $35 million US Dollars and rumors made the rounds that the new owners would relaunch the site with a new design and focus on what made the site popular in first place, music.
The new MySpace is finally here and open to existing and new users of the service. When you load the main MySpace website you are automatically taken to the new url to sign in with an existing MySpace account or create a new account either by signing in with Facbeook or Twitter, or by entering registration information manually.
You can start filling out profile information right away or skip that step to dive right into the new MySpace design. If you are new to MySpace try the tours page which highlights the new areas and features of the site.
- Discover - Discover new people, music, mixes and videos.
- Music Catalog - Offers artist biographies, songs, albums, videos and events.
- Create Mix - You can create mixes using songs, photos and videos.
- Radio - Seems to work similar to what Spotify and other Internet streaming services are offering. You can tune into a certain genre or use the search to create a new station.
A toolbar at the bottom acts as the main navigation and music player that is displayed on all pages. The focus on music is best highlighted here in the bar as you can also use it to discover artists or search for artists
The design uses as little menus as possible. The toolbar is the only menu that is always displayed, while other page elements are only displayed when they are needed.
Music comes in three different ways. You can play some music fully on MySpace, others only as 30 second snippets or not at all. I'm not sure if there are country restrictions in place that prevent you from listening to some of the music but would say that this is the case.
Verdict
Is the relaunch enough to keep MySpace in the game and maybe even convince new and past users of the service to give it a try? The concentration on music could work provided that what's being offered works. I had issues playing the majority of radio stations which may be because of my location in the world or because not everything is available yet.
MySpace could become a serious competitor for Last.fm and other music streaming and database services, more than it will become one of a general purpose social networking site such as Facebook or Google Plus.
Seconded. Verdict in Blue is easy on the eyes plus catches our attention at once. The word Verdict could also be inside the blue box ?
Or Google Plus? LOL! That was nice. In a while, Google will start demanding account on Plus in order to be using other services. It’s already integrated to the bone… Only one last decision left to be made, “mandatory or not yet?”
Martin, I like the verdict in blue part who is new. Handy and blue does it for me.
Concerning MySpace I hope they pick up the slack. This because its always good to have more options.
Currently experimenting a bit with different color schemes.
One last thing i tried to set up a new myspace account and they even messed that up. If a person creats an account then it should only be deleted by them or a loved one. Not by a company. I have very bad fillings towards myspace for the way they conduct business since Tom was bought out.
My wife had created an account had around 63,000 followers and with out any notice it was deleted along with 150,000 others. Every atempt to get it back was said with terms of service garbage. Brook or Tina had done nothing wrong for the account to be deleted for any reason. So i lost my wife and 1 hour later lost any access at all to what she loved very dearly. So i am angry to say the least.
The jackazz myspace what or how are you gone to re invent a piece of crap that died the day you deleted 150,000 accounts in 5 minutes including my wifes account that died 1 hour earlier and refuse to give me it back or any access to it. I say your a rotten ass company they need to bury right along with those 150,000 accounts you rotten idiots deleted.
they should leave myspace alone they are going to loose the few people that are left.
though the few that are left are there for the games and if you delete the games everyone
will leave please just leave myspace alone!!!!
I guess they all stagnate at some point. How much new stuff has there been on Facebook or Twitter? Looking at recent times, for the end user, I only recall the ‘timeline ‘ as something new in Facebook and Twitter the background image for the profile.
It will be very difficult to be innovative now. Short messages, long messages, videos, images, sharing, aggregating, giving rep, mash ups, etc. are all done. As far as ‘social’ goes I don’t know how much innovation is left. I think Myspace was bound to be overtaken by others because it was one of the earlier ones.
It felt like the site stopped innovating at one point in time which was probably reason for its demise. Add to that the hype of the “new star on the block” and you get a site that is destined to lose.
A little to late and not innovative.