MySpace angling to become music, film portal
MySpace aims to become more relevant in social media and is retooling itself as a one-stop destination for music, gaming and entertainment after losing ground to social networking sites Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc.
"We will really become relevant, and there's just no way when you have 100 million-plus users a month like we do that you don't have something that's really relevant," Chief Executive Officer Owen Van Natta said in an interview at a music conference in Cannes this past weekend. "Along the path we are going down, we should see increased gains."
Van Natta, the former chief operating officer of Facebook, took over the News Corp.-owned site in April and has since replaced most of the management team, cleared content such as jobs listings, horoscopes and weather updates and made music and entertainment top priority. MySpace posted 7 percent growth in unique visitors from November to December, the first increase since mid-last year, Van Natta said, citing statistics by researcher ComScore Inc.
"We don't want to get ahead of ourselves here but it's good that the numbers have stabilized and we hope this will continue," Van Natta said.
Facebook has more than 350 million users, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in December. Twitter has more than 58 million global monthly users.
MySpace introduced features on the MySpace Music web site in September and is targeting more alliances with marketers aiming to harness the allure of music to drive revenue. Toyota Motor Corp. has sponsored a free music download on Tuesday, Activision Blizzard Inc. was involved with a Jay-Z concert, and Fiat SpA helped launch MySpace music features in the U.K. last month. McDonald's Corp. and Coca-Cola Co. are also active advertisers, according to the company.
Record LabelsMySpace Music is jointly owned by the world's largest record labels including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group Corp., Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Group Ltd. Van Natta said MySpace recorded a 92 percent gain in visitors to its music site in 2009 from the year before, and a 30 percent increase in the past 30 days.Even with the increases, online music video site Vevo, which began service in early December, was the most visited in the entertainment-music category last month, with more than 35 million unique visitors, according to ComScore. Partners in Vevo include Universal Music, Sony and EMI. The site is powered by Google Inc.'s YouTube.Next Generation"We're not trying to be the No. 1 video site or the No. 1 audio site," Van Natta said, adding that MySpace is the leader in social media. "We want to develop that next generation, and we're highly social about film and music."There are no plans to eventually charge for MySpace Music or other services, and the goal is to remain reliant on the majority of revenue coming from advertising, Van Natta said. Many music Web sites, like streaming services Spotify, We7 and Rhapsody, aim to get users to pay a monthly fee.Van Natta didn't rule out that MySpace Music could develop a music streaming service and said he was considering many business models."The rate of innovation is increasing in this space so fast and so we'll try lot of different things," he said.