Months after it was purchased by online ad firm Specific Media at a fire sale price, MySpace is finally getting a makeover. The focus, as the new owners promised, is on music and includes full Facebook integration, a final admission that MySpace is no longer the social network it was created to be.
Rolling out today, the changes, first reported by Billboard, also include a revamped music player with music recommendation and music search built in. "Music is white-hot right now and we want to be able to capitalize on our music catalog and our history in music. It's something the previous management didn't really highlight,"MySpace chief operating officer Chris Vanderhook told Billboard.
Vanderhook's hope is to use the deals that MySpace has with labels along with an exclusive catalog of millions of tracks from independent artists to reposition the site as a music destination. Many artists, however, stopped updating their MySpace pages months ago, and their is no guarantee they or their fans will return.