MySpace is to go a different direction as Facebook’s dominance of social network can no longer be ignored.
MySpace have finished trying to re-establish their social network basis surrendering to their one time rival Facebook, with chief executive Mike Jones announcing at the Monaco Media Forum, ‘MySpace is not a social network anymore. It is now a social entertainment destination.’
There is no denying the rapid decrease of active members on the site. In July earlier this year MySpace’s UK users alone halved to only 3.3 million monthly visitors.
The troubled site is hoping that by going back to their roots of focusing on music and other content their popularity will once again soar.
To do this MySpace plans a complete revamp of their site, even changing their once iconic logo. The logo will no longer show the website name with the three silhouetted ‘users’ but rather a complete contrast with the word ‘My’ and an extended underscore to represent ‘Space’.
Once a thriving social networking site, MySpace (founded in 2003) at its peak had more then 100 million active users. In 2005 the company was sold to News Corporation for $580 million.
However as Facebook’s popularity grew in 2008, MySpace found their active users rapidly declining.
Chief operating officer of News Corporation Chase Carey has said in view of MySpaces failings, ‘We’ve been clear that MySpace is a problem. The current losses are not acceptable or sustainable.’ He continued saying that he wanted ‘a clear path to profitability’ to be measured ‘quarterly, not in years.’
In September 2010 MySpace lost $156 million, an increase of $30 million from the loses of the previous year ($126 million).
Playing down Carey’s words Jones has since insisted that it has been taken out of context as all businesses owned by News Corp are measured quarterly. Jones made it clear that ‘there is no timeline to shut down MySpace.’
Critics have already slammed MySpace for focussing too much on their U.S audience in its catering of content and delivery. MySpace currently has only one European office which is based in London after closing their other European offices in the previous year.
The sites free streaming service has already failed to make an impact in the UK with users preferring to use the music streaming services of Spotify. Jones admits that ‘we can be better at the way people consume music on MySpace,’ but assures that ‘over the coming months, we will be rolling out new features to improve this.’
Jones has also assured that rather then attract new users for the moment their focus will remain on keeping there current 130 million active users stating ‘we have to get the product, which is still in beta, fully right.’
The focus of the new MySpace when launched in the UK will be only on music discovery with other content such as film to be launched at a later date. They hope to be attracting a demographic of 13 to 35 year old users.
The launch of the U.S MySpace however included a variety of content other then music including film and television. Jones is hoping that with higher quality content the company will receive a good advertising return.
Jones refused to comment on reports that MySpace will soon be introducing a ‘Facebook connect button’ which will allow users to use their Facebook account in sync with there MySpace account, effectively promoting their one time heavyweight rival.
Jones has also denied that MySpace is up for Sale and when asked where he sees MySpace in upcoming years he replied, ‘It sounds like a mobile product.’