A New Space for MySpace, but Will Anyone Care?
In a thrust to keep its place in the social networking era, where Facebook and Twitter seemed to have secured the prime sear, MySpace makes a grand reappearance with a renewed image. Its website, now aimed into becoming and entertainment destination for the younger audience aged 15 to 35 years old, dubbed as Generation Y.
With its rebirth Wednesday, the pioneer of social networking now has set focus in giving users added means to scoff music, videos and celebrity gossip.
Although MySpace had long centered on entertainment has, the site has been pulled rather awkwardly by classifieds, job ads and even user reviews in obvious partnership with Citysearch causing it to get pushed further to being the web’s social portal. However, Facebook had slowly turned out to be that portal.
“Over time, Myspace got very broad and lost focus of what its members were using it for,” Michael Jones, the president of Myspace, a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, said in an interview.
According to Mr. Jones, more than 120 million Myspace members were mainly using the site to listen to music, and get information on the music, share opinions and talk about anything such as movies and television shows and other celebrity issues.
Mr. Jones further explained that competing with Facebook would not be the reason of the new MySpace; but an emphasis on content and doing away with all the clutter that made MySpace weight drag it down.
“Our focus is social entertainment,” he said. “Niche players have long staying power.”
The focus on social entertainment might not have been what News Corp. CEO, Rupert Murdoch, had in mind. In 2005, incidentally the same year that YouTube was born, News Corp. bought MySpace for $580 million, giving it a lustrous beginning that eventually started to fade away flocked to Facebook, leaving $174 million losses to in the most recent quarter.
EMarketer estimated about $347 million on MySpace advertisements this year, down from $470 million in 2009. On the contrary, the research firm estimated $1.3 billion on Facebook ad spending, from last year’s $665 million.
The new MySpace design, easing out from its shell gradually, had also revised its technical site structure to easily adapt to future updates. In other updated design news, Yahoo Mail got a beta overhaul today as well.
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