Myspace recently revamped its website completely. Unfortunately, the unveiling coincided with Facebook’s big announcement about Graph Search. So obviously Myspace got overshadowed! It still managed to generate some buzz, but where exactly is Myspace heading with this? They took too much time to come up with a redesigned site and social networking domain has become too crowded now. Is there any hope for yet another social network to survive?
The Redesign
More than a year ago, Justin Timberlake bought a significant stake in Myspace. It was quite mysterious as to why he would invest in a dying company. But things are getting clearer now. Myspace was on its way to a major redesign and they are hoping to generate some revenue this year. Either that or Timberlake was not sure if people will care about his new single unless he shoves it in people’s faces. If you have visited the new Myspace homepage, you will know what I am talking about.
Myspace allows users to stream music in an always-present music player at the bottom of the page. It also allows musicians to track where there top fans are, determined by which Myspace user plays the artist’s music the most. Seems like general social networking is not exactly the focus here, or may be they are just trying to mask it!
Who is Myspace competing with?
The new redesign is not exactly clear on who they are trying to compete with. On first glance, the site looks promising. It utilizes an attractive interface that melds the functions and appearance of sites like Pinterest, Rdio and Instagram. People say they are competing with Facebook, Spotify and Pandora in one go. That’s just silly! Facebook is too big now to worry about Myspace. Facebook is doing big things and is competing in the big money market. Spotify and Pandora are music services with a lot of buzz and a dedicated user base. How is Myspace going to base its comeback by taking on those services?
Myspace is to Facebook as Apple was to Microsoft 15 years ago
Even though Myspace was one of the early players in the social networking game, it somehow lost its way. It has seen steady decline over the last few years, almost going to the brink of becoming completely irrelevant. So what exactly is it that Myspace should do? For starters, they should stop competing head on with Facebook. It is too small and too late to compete with the behemoth that Facebook has become. Instead, it should try to reinvent itself with something fresh. May be create a new segment! That’s what Apple did when it found itself in this position. Myspace has been in the social networking domain for a long time, but they have been completely overtaken. So they should come up with a radically new thing that people will get hooked on to.
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Perpetual Enigma 