I Bid Thee Farewell, Myspace!

Today is an historical day. Today is the day I deleted my Myspace page! There's been a lot of commotion on the Internet and news stations about me deleting my page so I figured I'd let all my readers hear firsthand (actually...READ firsthand, lol) about the whole situation.

Basically it comes down to one simple concept...Myspace just sucks. I remember when Myspace, or "the Space" as us cool kids call it, was all the rage. You could upload photos, and holler at some hotties you were feeling, and design your profile page to include the five hottest women of all time, to name a few ideas. I'm not sure when it happened but at some point it's Suckness Factor began to rise and Facebook slowly started taking over even though Facebook, or "the Book" as us cool kids call it, was considered the nerdy version of Myspace.

Anyways, I was going to make this a long post about why Myspace is el whacko, but it doesn't really deserve all of my time. Plus, I still need to clean my condo since I my housekeeper called out sick today. Until next time.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Don't forget to follow me on this blog by signing in on the left where it says...ummm...Followers.

:-)

Sell Your Songs on MySpace

SNOCAP, the service that lets artists register their songs and sell it directly to fans on the Web, inked a deal with News Corp's MySpace this week. The deal is designed to allow MySpace's 3 million bands to sell their music.

SNOCAP, the company founded by Shawn Fanning after Napster was flushed down the toilet, will need about 4 million songs to be downloaded per month in order to break even? Possible? Who knows, but with MySpace's 107 million members and counting that shouldn't be too hard. The MySpace artist chooses how much he or she wants to sell the song for. Of that amount, the artist gets more than 50%. MySpace and SNOCAP split the rest, with MySpace taking a bigger chunk.

I mentioned before how powerful MySpace is and will continue to be. Think about what this deal will do to the indie record label and artist. You have a free website a la MySpace where you can do all your promotions, create hype, build a fan base; that’s your Marketing department right there. Now you can sell music via download on the free MySpace site; that’s your distribution channel. The evolution of music. What do you need Universal or Columbia for?

Not that this deal alone will scare the bejesus out of the major labels but we are witnessing the evolution of the music industry. The major labels know that there chances of finding great talent is like a gajillion to one. It's like Russian Roulette to them where they will sign a bunch of talent hoping one of them will turn into an Usher or a Beyonce. The labels lose millions because of this so that's why they take a huge portion of the artist's money to recoup their losses. So how does a company like Universal make money? Distribution. Threaten their distribution and well, put two and two together. Remember Napster? The labels weren't enraged because of copyright issues, please! The labels were worried that their distribution model was in jeopardy. If you are an artist and you want millions of records sold you have no choice but to sign a deal with a major label because they controlled music distribution, but now MySpace is allowing the artist to sell their music through the website.

Does this really impact the major labels? Not necessarily. The Big Four record labels (Universal, Sony, EMI, Warner) control 80% of the worldwide music industry so this deal won't be anything more than really small sneeze in their realm. As I mentioned earlier, most artists and bands suck, no question. So if your local Lemon Swirls band wants to sell their music on MySpace, believe me, Diddy is not crying over it. But what if the Lemon Swirls were the next Maroon 5, the next Metallica? That's millions of dollars of lost revenue that could have been pocketed by one of the Big Four! That's what they should be worried about.

Let's face it, MTV is not what it used to be. If you watched the ever-boring VMAs then you know what I'm referring to. MTV and even radio are not breaking acts as they once did; MTV has more TV shows than music videos and radio has more commercials than music. Could MySpace be what these two powerhouses once were? With MySpace you have the freedom to CHOOSE who you want to listen to. And, I keep going back to it but MySpace has over 100 million subscribers, that's almost 2% of the entire WORLD'S population! Ok, maybe it's not so dramatic.

MySpace Music isn't going to cripple the music industry anytime soon, but Tom and Chris are thinking outside the box. Don't expect them to make millions from this new deal, but hey, what is it costing them? Call me crazy if you'd like but MySpace and Google are the future of BUSINESS.

MySpace, Bigger Than You Think

MySpace.com, a site that generates more hits than Google, may seem like a simple site run by "Tom" but in actuality is a lot bigger than most people think. Reason: simple design and super user-friendly. It doesn't look like most corporate-run websites with fancy graphics and front-end technology and it gives its over 100 million users the feeling that they control the site, which they do. MySpace users have full freedom to do as they please which is exactly what founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe intended when they launched the site back in 2004. You may picture Tom running MySpace from a small office with a handful of employees but maintaining the fastest growing website with over 100 millions members needs a bit more than a few employees; over 300 to be exact and growing.

But MySpace did have a humble start. Tom Anderson, 30, and Chris DeWolfe, 40, started MySpace back in 2003, while working for Intermix Media, inviting local LA bands, promoters, and club owners to post pages and allowing fans to become their "friends." They got their idea from other social-networking sites like BlackPlanet and Friendster but planned to have a much broader vision. Friendster at the time was the largest site of its kind but when they began implementing certain restrictions its users migrated over to MySpace. In early 2005 Redpoint Ventures invested $15 million in MySpace's parent company, Intermix Media, but that was nothing compared to what Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. paid for it in six months later. How does $580 million sound? What the heck is News Corp. you ask? Well they only 20th Century Fox, Fox Television, FX, DirecTV, TV Guide, and the New York Post just to name a few. Now part of News Corp's Fox Interactive Media division does MySpace seem small to you now?

Hardly, and $580 million is a lot to pay for a website, but for a site with over 100 million members--and signing up 230,000 members a day--and 1 billion hits a day it could turn out to be a bargain price. Just because Murdoch is the 32nd richest person in America, worth over $6 billion, doesn't mean he just throws money away at any little venture without worrying about those three little letters: ROI, Return on Investment. How does a free site like MySpace return on Murdoch's investment? Advertisers! I did say 100 million members, right? While MySpace is boosting up its ad sales force it's also jacking up its ad rates (in comparison Yahoo charges $600,000 a day for an ad on the Yahoo.com homepage) and even selling MySpace pages to advertisers for a whopping $100,000 (P&G, Honda, and Wendy's have MySpace pages). Sierra Mist and Aquafina, two Pepsi brands, sponsor MySpace Comedy and MySpace Film, respectively, two of MySpace many features.

Speaking of features, MySpace is currently working on 20 new features. Tom and Chris are have already teamed up with Interscope Records to launch MySpace Records, and cell company Helio launching MySpace Mobile. Let’s not forget MySpace Film which was launched at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, MySpace comedy which boasts 8,000 comedians, MySpace Music home to 2.2 million bands, and plans on launching MySpace Fashion, MySpace News and MySpace Sports. That's not all, the dynamic duo are also developing VoIP, 11 new international sites of which the UK and Australia have already been launched, and e-commerce partnerships with either eBay or Amazon. With each added features comes with more users, which equals more dollars, greenbacks, Benjamins, cheddar, whatever you want to call it.

With all this money floating around how did Tom and Chris make out? Well, Chris DeWolfe reportedly made $2.9 million from the deal, not to mention the duo received millions more from their stake in MySpace Ventures--a minority owner of the site--and pretty hefty employment contracts when they joined News Corp. (which expires in 2007). So how does being owned by multi-billion dollar conglomerate affect MySpace? Well now they have sales goals to meet and budgets to review and maintain. But Tom and Chris as well as Mr. Murdoch have promised that the site will not lose its simple feel. You can't help but wonder whether MySpace will become another fad, like Blackplanet or MiGente. Doubtfully, because unlike other these other sites MySpace has deep pockets behind it and the site doesn't dictate what's cool, the users do. And as long as the users are free do so as they please MySpace isn't going anywhere.

And with that said, check out my MySpace page at www.myspace.com/nellynandes.

Source: Sellers, Patricia. "MySpace Cowboys." Fortune, September 4, 2006: 66-74.