Myspace is a social networking site that was once the reigning king of social media. It was started by a group of eUniverse employees in 2003. Brad Greenspan who was the current CEO and president of eUniverse headed the project. Chris DeWolfe was Myspace’s starting CEO and manager, and Tom Anderson was the first president and the iconic face of everyone’s first Myspace friend.
Myspace grew quickly and was extremely popular with teenagers and college aged adults. In 2005, in the midst of eUniverse being sold, Chris DeWolfe and another eUniverse employee obtained Myspace from eUniverse. Shortly afterwards, Mark Zuckerberg offered to sell Facebook to Myspace for $75 million which DeWolfe declined. Then, in July 2005 the media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his company New Corporation purchased Myspace for a whopping $580 million.
Myspace’s popularity rose steadily in the next few years. News Corporation decided to launch a Myspace UK in an effort to market UK music. Then they quickly opened the website in more international markets. By 2006 they had over 100 million users and counting. At one point Myspace was valued at $12 billion while Murdoch attempted to merge Myspace and Yahoo.
Myspace was the biggest social networking site in 2007 and 2008. Their ratings and increase in users seemed invincible. They had one of the biggest media tycoons in charge and did everything in house.
Myspace
The Purchase
In 2008, Facebook had surpassed Myspace in the amount of users. Unfortunately from then on, the amount of Myspace users declined more and more every year. After a steep decline in value, Murdoch and New Corporation put Myspace up for sale in February of 2011. What the actual cause of the downfall of Myspace was is a hotly contested debate.
News Corporation was hoping to get at least $100 million for the Myspace deal, but no bids even came close. It was eventually purchased by Specific Media in June 2011 for a reported $35 million.
Who is Specific Media?
Specific Media LLC is a media advertising company with a focus on digital media. It was founded by three brothers; Tim Vanderhook, Russell Vanderhook, and Chris Vanderhook. They offer a range of media and advertising services. More importantly though, Justin Timberlake is a part owner of the company and heavily involved in the relaunch of the site under Specific Media.
What is the New Vision for Myspace?
The guys at Specific Media see Myspace as an opportunity to rebuild the site as a music and entertainment platform. They hope to appeal to the Generation-Y crowd who are looking to explore music and creativity. Myspace is looking to be a site where artists can reach out to their fans and their fans can stay connected with their favorite artists.
Specific Media is looking to make the site less about connecting with friends and more about discovery. They are marketing it towards the young creative types as almost an edgy type of social media site. A site that is more about self discovery and less about selling yourself to others. They see it as a way for artists to find new fans and for entertainment lovers to find beloved artists and new ones.
What Can You Expect?
If you want to check out Myspace for yourself, you can do so at its original site at www.myspace.com.
If you are a former Myspace user who is looking to reactivate your account, you will notice that the site looks completely different. Luckily, while your old profile is gone, you will still have access to your old pictures and playlists.
If you are a new user, you will have to sign up for a new account. They will ask for general information, including how you plan on using Myspace. This means they want to know if you are a fan or if you are an artist who wants to share your work.
The new Myspace layout is very different from the old profile. It has a feel that is more like Pinterest, where you can see what your connections are currently looking at. The more connections you have, the more content you will have in your main page for you to view.
Not only can you discover new content through your connections, but there is also an option to do searches. Myspace also links similar artists together and their influences. To organize the content on Myspace you can create what are called “mixes.” These mixes can be shared with your connections.
Unlike the old Myspace and Facebook, the new Myspace interface does not require requests to become a connection. This is similar to how Twitter has followers. This is convenient if you would like to connect with artists and don’t want to wait to be accepted.
If you are looking for more information on Myspace or have any questions, you can go to www.askmyspace.com.
Photo courtesy : publishing2.com
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