MySpace
Social networking site MySpace is launching a new music service backed by three of the world’s biggest record companies. Users will be able to listen to songs and watch videos free and buy downloads from the site.
MySpace Music has done a deal with Universal, Sony BMG and Warner. EMI, whose artists include Robbie Williams, Coldplay and KT Tunstall, is not part of the deal though.
The service will make money through music download sales, advertising and sales of concert tickets, artist wallpaper, t-shirts and ringtones.
MySpace users will be able to customize their chosen content into playlists and will be able to buy tracks from the MySpace Music home page, on each of the site’s five million artist profile pages or on individual user home pages. It can’t get mush easier or more interactive than this – you see the artist, watch the video, listen to the tracks and buy just the ones you want.
According to MySpace, the music will not have copy protection on it which means you should be able to load it onto your MP3 player. The company has not said yet whether ALL the music will be copy protection, or DRM, free. That will most likely be up to the music label or perhaps the individual artists
Launch this year
MySpace CEO and co-founder, Chris DeWolfe, said: “Today represents the beginning of a new chapter in the story of modern music.
“We’re proud to announce the marriage of the world’s biggest collection of music content to the world’s most popular music community.”
The move is likely to worry Apple whose iTunes store is the market leader and currently, eight out of 10 songs sold online are purchased through iTunes.
The MySpace entry could mean cheaper downloads as competition heats up. MySpace has a readymade market of more than 100 million users and is likely to be more popular than services like SpiralFrog. www.spiralfrog.com
MySpace Music will be launched later this year.
Here’s the current link to MySpace Music where you can listen to music tracks and watch the videos – keep checking the site for changes coming later this year.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music
