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Facebook Is Reportedly Considering Digital Music
News emerged Friday that Facebook may be considering adding music to its mix. According to the New York Post, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is considering getting into the digital-music business.If the report is true, it would put Facebook on the heels of MySpace's latest strategic effort to differentiate itself among youthful social networkers.Rhapsody.com, iMeem.com, iLike.com and Lala.com are among the digital-music sites Facebook is reportedly in talks with. Facebook is also said to be in talks with major music labels. It's a move that would put Facebook in competition not only with MySpace, but also Apple's iTunes Store and Amazon.com, among others. "Facebook is a serious challenger to MySpace and they would certainly want to do anything that record labels would allow them to do with advertising-supported music," said Phil Leigh, senior analyst at Inside Digital Media. "Advertising-supported revenue would be good for Facebook and certainly free access to recorded music would be good for Facebook members. It would be good for the labels, too. If the MySpace deal is working out well, then the labels would probably want to replicate that on Facebook."Streaming Music?MySpace Music streamed a billion songs within days after its Sept. 25 launch. By contrast, it took the iTunes Store nearly three years to reach that mark. MySpace admitted it doesn't know if it can keep up those numbers. Its launch was highly publicized.What's not clear is the pricing model. Would Facebook, if sells music, go with a flat price for a digital download, a subscription model, or an advertising-supported stream, as Leigh suggested? There is no lack of competition on any of those fronts. Nokia and Sony Ericsson are challenging Apple's digital-music empire with a subscription model.In a recent consumer study by Strategy Analytics, 84 percent of respondents indicated a willingness to pay for a...
Stagnant MySpace Lays Off 400 To Become Nimble
MySpace is looking to return to its online upstart roots -- and the first step is to shave 400 people from its workforce.By reducing staff nearly 30 percent, MySpace hopes to restructure into a more innovative, efficient and entrepreneurial business. The plan crosses all U.S. divisions of the company and cuts the total number of domestic MySpace staff to 1,000."Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company," said MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta. "I understand that these changes are painful for many. They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace. Our intent is to return to an environment of innovation that is centered on our user and our product."Is Facebook to Blame?The move to lay off staff comes as Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who owns MySpace parent News Corp., looks for ways to revive his digital business assets. News Corp. acquired MySpace in 2005 for $580 million at the beginning of the social-networking craze. At the time, it was the leading social-media portal, but Facebook and Twitter have taken some of the shine off the brand and the company isn't meeting its financial goals."MySpace grew too big, considering the realities of today's marketplace," said Jonathan Miller, News Corp.'s CEO of digital media and chief digital officer. "I believe this restructuring will help MySpace operate much more effectively both structurally and financially moving forward. I am confident in MySpace's next phase under the leadership of Owen and his team."Van Natta took the CEO reins from Chris DeWolfe in April. DeWolfe, who was responsible for growing MySpace from a seven-person firm to a leader in social networking, continues to serve on the board of MySpace China and is a strategic adviser to the company, but News...
Massive Layoffs Await MySpace Employees
Layoff described by one source as ":massive" are coming to MySpace although there is no official word yet from the company. MySpace shed 5% of its staff a year ago and laid of as many as 45 more last month. But these cuts will go far deeper, according to TechCrunch and could hit several hundred. Management will inevitably blame a tough economy and plummeting ad revenue, but declining traffic is the real culprit.
Monthly unique visitors to MySpace have fallen from 64.6 million in June of 2008 to 56.8 million in May of 2009 while Facebook rose from 35.2 million to 113 million during the same period. New leadership has been brought in both at parent Fox Interactive and MySpace to turn the ship around with music as the cornerstone of the rebuilding process. A brief personal message to the head of MySpace Music:Good luck, Courtney. This is going to be a tough one and you have many masters, Now is the time to get the indie and d.i.y. music communityies more involved again They helped create MySpace, and they can help make it relevent again. It won't cost millions either. Just equal treatment and a place at the table.And you don't have a lot of time before Facebook finally jumps more into the music game. They really have no choice but to.Believe it or not, a lot of us are routing for you.Bruce HoughtonComments
Age Differences Between MySpace and Facebook Users
comScore's recent digital year in review reveals that the MySpace demographic has gotten younger over the last year whereas Facebook's 24 & under crowd decreased and its 25-34 year segment increased. An analysis of demographic composition of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter users revealed important differences that reflect their appeal to various audiences. MySpace saw its user composition shift toward younger audience segments in 2009, with people age 24 and younger now comprising 44.4 percent of the site’s audience, up more than 7 percentage points from the previous year. Facebook’s audience, by contrast, was evenly split between those younger and older than 35 years of age. The most noticeable demographic shift on Facebook during the year occurred with 25-34 year olds, who now account for 23 percent of the audience, up from 18.8 percent last year.
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Say goodbye to Yahoo! Mash
On today's web, so many social sites never get off the ground because users don't easily migrate from their online communities. As much as I want MySpace to die, people will still be using it as long as their friends are using it. Yahoo's mashup social network had a promising start, but it quickly dropped off. Almost a year ago, I wrote a post about how interactive it was, and how addicted I was to it. I remember going to the site 20 times a day because other people had the ability to update my profile page. I could drag around widgets and import feeds. I actually said, “It’s more mature than MySpace, more interactive than Virb, and more interesting than Facebook.” ...
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