Myspace or Yours?

After stating that the Internet was dead in my last piece, I decided to ask, if it’s not dead then what's next for social media? I thought it was a good follow up question after declaring the Internet dead. Well, then again, I'm not sure if I declared it dead, or just dead to some. Maybe that is the question I should be asking and answering here, but I'm not. Maybe next time.

As far as my discussion for today goes, I decided to talk about the first of the three most well known social media sites that most every artist uses in more detail: Myspace. Don’t be mad at me Facebook and Twitter users your turn is coming. I know lots of you are saying, ‘I don’t use Myspace anymore’. That’s okay, but my question to you is, why not? First up is Myspace. Over the past few weeks Myspace has totally relaunched itself as a place for social entertainment. No longer as the place for friends as it originally billed itself.

Myspace for many artists was the originator of the social media revolution. It in essence gave you a free web page that you could load your music, pictures, tours dates, etc up to for the world to see. The idea was genius and quite revolutionary to say the least. The idea that people looking to connect with artists in such an all encompassing way had never existed before. In turn millions flocked there overnight. As with all good ideas though, competition soon followed.

Myspace, being the giant it was, didn’t really take any of the challenges to its superiority very serious. They did little, if anything, to keep up with or advance the idea of social media. The word complacency comes to mind. As always the case with such a mind set, Myspace began to slip off the radar of all of the new social media fanatics and soon lead way to the birth of the second great social media explosion: Facebook.

At this point it seems Myspace seems to be resting all of its hopes on its ability to draw in entertainment users. Probably because someone at Myspace realized that the only people still using their site was artists. You can still have a band page on myspace, but I don't see the thrust towards being a future leader in the social media realm. What attracts a user to come to Myspace to meet or network with just artists? Nothing.There are already numerous sites across the web that offer users entertainment news, updates, features and access to celebrities. Most of these sites offer you a free membership where you can sign in to get updates direct to your email or mobile device. I don't think having the option of having a personal page on Myspace will make much of a difference or help separate it from other sites that already provide that sort of content.

From an artist’s standpoint, I can see where the thought of music consumers coming to Myspace for entertainment news might help generate traffic for your own profile, but I wouldn’t hold out hope.

The major labels already spend large amounts of money promoting artists signed to their labels on Myspace. i.e. Myspace Music. Also, major label artists are paid for every visit to their page. I bet you didn’t know that. They have a deal setup with Myspace so that their artists are paid based on song plays because of the advertisements that are placed at the top of each page. They also work in conjunction with Amzon.com as a direct link to buy or purchase that artists music direct from their Myspace page.

I thought I should take a moment before you get the idea of contacting Myspace, Amazon, CD Baby or anyone else and asking where your money is, to tell you that’s it’s not coming. Before CD Baby was bought out by Disc Makers, they were trying to negotiate a deal with Myspace to help get a little of that same money for the artists whom they represent. By represent, I mean artists who used them for digital distribution to iTunes and other Internet download music sites. No such luck. Before the deal was in place, Disc Makers had acquired them and the deal hit the preverbal back burner where it has stayed. Such is life for an indie artist.

I think going forward it will be even harder now for indie artists to find and get exposure on Myspace. One bright spot to Myspace though, in a recent survey, 80% of people said Myspace was the first site they visited to hear new music and find new artists. Don’t delete that band page just yet!

Ok, I have rattled on enough about Myspace. In the end I think having a presence there is important. When thinking about the Internet you have to think about your overall web foot print. The larger it is, the easier it is to drive traffic to your own webpage. (We will talk about your own web page very soon!) Using Myspace as a part of that foot print is worth a little of your time. If nothing else, Myspace still gives you a cheap easy way to get your music out so everyone can hear it. Most venues even request a link to your Myspace page when you approach them about booking a gig. So it’s good to have, just don’t put all of you eggs in one basket.

Next time we will talk about Facebook and Twitter. They are both are very different from Myspace and each other. It’s going to be interesting!