Thursday, September 25, 2008

MySpace Music Debuts Today!

This is not related to Support or IT, but it is related to Social Media. The net is buzzing about MySpace Music today! MySpace Music allows users to stream virtually any song ever published for free and is sponsored and supported by the Big 4 Labels. All four major labels - Universal, Warner, Sony and EMI - are on board (EMI was a last minute addition). Visitors can check out the site going live tonight at 12am Eastern Time at http://music.myspace.com/.

Users can also create playlists that contain up to 100 songs and share them with others. Any song can also be downloaded in non-DRM MP3 format, for a fee, from Amazon’s music download service. And if you want that song as a ringtone, you can get it as well via Jamster.


This is great for end users, artists, and the Internet alike. But what is in it for the labels? Aside from a sale of Mp3s and Ringtones, and some exposure of their catalog - I am not sure. It's still not clear how else they will be compensated. For one, it would appear that they are certainly now stock owners of My Space which is currently valued at $2 Million Dollars. However, it does not appear that a pay for stream model is being provided. Usually streaming services pay $.002 cents per stream. In which I personally think it is nonsense anyway. So will MySpace also pay them this fee as millions of users stream their artists music? Or are labels simply seeking a new investment opportunity. We shall soon see.


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