MySpace the latest to take on iTunes

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1731960.htm

MySpace, the popular online teen hangout, says it will make its first move into the digital music business by selling songs from nearly 3 million unsigned bands.

MySpace is the latest company to try to take on Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store, but unlike many other start-up rivals, it already boasts 106 million users, as well as the backing of parent company News Corp.

"The goal is to be one of the biggest digital music stores out there," MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe said.

"Everyone we've spoken to definitely wants an alternative to iTunes and the iPod. MySpace could be that alternative."

Online marketing researcher Hitwise says in the past year, MySpace.com has become the single most visited Internet address among US web users, with mainly teenagers and young adults using the site to socialise, share music and photographs.

Mr De Wolfe says before the end of the year, MySpace will offer independent bands that have not signed with a record label a chance to sell their music on the site.

MySpace says it has nearly 3 million bands showcasing their music.

Songs can be sold on the bands' MySpace pages and on fan pages, in non-copy-protected MP3 digital file format, which works on most digital players including Apple's market-dominating iPod.

Fees

Snocap, which provides digital licensing and copyright management services and was started by Napster founder Shawn Fanning, will manage the e-commerce service.

Its chief executive, Rusty Rueff, says the bands will decide how much to charge per song after including MySpace's distribution fee.

Mr Rueff says the "small" distribution fee is not yet fixed.

Mr DeWolfe says MySpace would be "enhancing and customising" its online music store as the service evolves, aiming to eventually offer copyright-protected songs from major record companies.

But an analyst at Jupiter Research, David Card, says he does not think the record companies "are going to be interested in distributing music without copy protection anytime soon".

Though Mr DeWolfe would not give any details of discussions with record companies, an industry source close to the matter said EMI Group has had discussions with MySpace.

EMI declined to comment.

Competitors

EMI, Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony BMG own around 75 per cent of mainstream popular music.

Most of this music is only available on MySpace for live streaming as a promotional tool.

Digital music is the fastest-growing sector of the record industry but the market is dominated by iTunes, which has more than 70 per cent of US sales.

iTunes is only fully compatible with the iPod.

The market has been abuzz with news of new entrants in recent weeks.

Privately held SpiralFrog plans to launch a free music download service supported by advertising before the end of the year, and has reached a deal with Universal Music.

Microsoft is planning to launch an iPod rival called the Zune, which will be supported by an integrated music download store similar to iTunes.

MySpace says it is working with eBay's PayPal for the site's online payment system.

- Reuters

This is the beginning of the end of Myspace....It's so NOT the cool hip place anymore now that it's commercialized. This is my prediction.

MyPod?

F that ..

My prediection a month ago was that in less than 5 years the average kid would be embarrassed to have a my space profile.

This is totally cylical. Something new hip, adverttising sweeps into cash in, people feel like it's getting old.. more advertising and commercialism to make up the differences, and then boom sold off to some porn site for change.

I wont be all gloom and doom here.. if all they were going to do was to piggy back a shopping cart system onto myspace.. that may work. They have to keep that sort of cutting edge yet untamed frontier vibe going, other wise they stand to lose 80% of their crowd. If logging into your myspace suddenly feels like walking into a wlamart, it's going to lose it's apeal,

I've been there over two years and it was never my impression that it was either hip or cool. But it has definitely been popular.

It's also one of the most poorly programmed major sites I frequent.

Yes, any site that upon logging in, that tells you that you need to login to do that, needs to have it's programmers hauled out and punched in the crotch, repeatedly.

Myspace has the worst bulletin board I have ever used more than once.

Bulletin boards are a pain to program (which is why so many people use off the shelf BBs). I was considering programming my own several years ago so I looked at a few by other folks...

A lot of us (here, anyhow) use BBs on a regular basis. But I wonder how many of us who haven't administered a BB have ever thought about how many different functions a full featured BB has to have. A lot of that overhead for something like MySpace is carried by the overall site (logins, profiles, etc) but when you start poking through all the things that go into a good BB live vBulletin, Nuke, WebWiz, etc, it's a bit daunting.

MySpace dealt with that by, essentially, ignoring all the little things that make a BB livable... stuff like search, message sorting, signatures, controlled image display, protection from malicious code...

... all of that is essentially ignored at MySpace, where the BB system is a rudimentary message board. Because they allow basic html code in their posts, you can fold in some stuff like images, blockquotes, and so on, but it also makes it easy for your typical troublemaker with a 15 minute education in HTML to wreak some silly havoc.

MySpace has also, recently, been the unwitting host to several malicious code exploits tied to their site advertising, as well as individual troublemakers.

I don't get MySpace.

The "friends" thing is useless; 3000 plays isn't the same thing as 3000 *paid downloads*...

Their "search" engine is useless; broke, as far as I can tell. Put someone's name in you get screwed up results. Put a band name in, maybe it's there, maybe it isn't... i

MY POINT

being that what use is it? HOw many times at a show do you hear the words "I'm/we/re on myspace!!". Really? So if I type your name in, I get your web page? Maybe?

I tried about 10 local bands once, and I think I got results for 2.

..and this weird "Friends" thing - 1,000 "friends", most of whom you've never met? Are they buying your cd? Does even 5 people on there confusingly think You're Great because of that? (don't answer that last question...)

I think by default, if they do it right, they'll morph into what mp3.com used to be, just not as functional. Unfortunately.

/ doesn't have a "MySpace Disassociated Look" photo

// no tattoos, either

MySpace is a free billboard on a really busy stretch of the information highway.

Honestly, it's that simple.

I use it to pimp my tunes and my production skillz. And I get more than my money's worth. End of story.

Ive said the same thing .. 500 local friends, and only the same 5 people go to my shows ? I dont beg people to take my music.. or my money, but that's another story .. lol

I think the key thing about MySpace is it gives people a way to communicate that can be cut off without jumping through hoops.

If you give your email address to people -- even friends -- it usually ends up collecting spam sooner or later (some people NEVER seem to learn how to use BCC no matter how many times their friends rake them over the coals).

With MySpace, people who are eager for new social contacts (I think that means "young people" ) can make connections that they can easily break or ignore.

I like the friends thing because it gives me a chance to REJECT people right off the bat. And nothing makes me feel better than rejecting another REHEARSAL SPACE in BRANSON, MO, that wants to be my friend...