November 21, 2012
Specific Media and Justin Timberlake are desperately trying to breathe life back into the social media platform. The new owners have massive plans for the site as a 29-page investment pitch for MySpace’s parent company, Interactive Media Holdings revealed. The leaked document shows that the company’s plan is to reincarnate MySpace as a rival to music streaming services Spotify and Pandora. The new plans also include; selling merchandise, tickets and music downloads as well as a mobile subscription service.
Moreover the new owners seem to think that it will be profitable because half of the platform’s music streaming will come from unassigned artists, Myspace therefore won’t have to pay royalties.
The ambitions for the platform are grand and commendable. The important question is… will it work? The site’s value has been in free-fall since its peak in 2005 when it was bought by Newscorp for $580 million. Last year Specific Media purchased Myspace for just $35 million and only made $9 million profit… Myspace doesn’t need ambition, it needs a miracle if it’s going to be a success.
Many are cynical about its relevancy and the leaked business plan for the re-launch is highly optimistic. Josh Constine of Techcrunch states the site ‘needs to hit a home run’, especially as not only is it notoriously getting more and more difficult to make money from the music industry, but Myspace’s direct competitors in this field are making a loss.
The question as to whether or not the former social media giant can be saved is yet to be answered. We won’t be able to experience the new musically themed Myspace until early next year, so judgement will have to be reserved until then. For now I’ll just open up my free Spotify account and listen to a few tunes…