Facebook users who enjoy using online music services such as Spotify or Pandora may want to consider giving MySpace another look.
MySpace recently launched Myspace Music Player, a new service is similar to Spotify that allows people to listen to streaming radio stations, create playlists featuring tracks by their favorite artists and watch music videos.
Boasting that they have over 42 million audio tracks in their music catalog, MySpace claims that they have the largest collection of music on the web.
On Monday, February 13, MySpace announced that the social media site gained one million new subscribers in December of 2011. They gave all the credit to interest in Myspace Music.
According to Chris Marlowe of Digital Media Wire, "Myspace today announced receiving more than 1 million new sign-ups in the last month, which it said is as a result of the company’s recently launched Myspace Music Player. That works out to an average of 40,000 registrations a day and brings the service’s monthly users to 25 million.
"This is a better strategy for the social network’s comeback than its Myspace TV app announcement, since Myspace has an underappreciated portfolio of music rights that encompasses over 42 million songs – considerably more than competitors like Spotify (15 million tracks globally), Rdio (12 million) and Pandora (nearly 1 million).
"... The revamped Myspace player has free unlimited on-demand listening, personalized radio modes, a recommendation engine and integration with Facebook."
Ironically, part of the success of Myspace Music is that, much like Spotify, it is compatible with the Facebook Ticker and Timeline, allowing Facebook users to engage in "social sharing" with their friends.
According to Molly McHugh of Digital Trends, "The story of Myspace’s success is more about Facebook than anything else. The Open Graph has been such a triumph and Facebook’s 'we have a platform, someone else can make the content we proliferate it with' concept has been working out splendidly.
"Myspace has wisely taken itself out of Facebook’s playing field. Now, it’s the likes of Spotify, MOG, Rdio, and Last.fm that the site will have to contend with. These are considerably smaller beasts, although their momentum (thanks in part to Facebook’s Timeline and new class of apps) shouldn’t be discounted.
"And because it integrates with Facebook, it has an edge over streaming services that don’t (we’re looking at you, Google Music)."
Facebook users in the Spokane area might be reluctant to start using MySpace, or in some cases go back to a social media network they haven't been part of in years, but the new Myspace Music Player has obvious benefits for anyone interested in contemporary popular music.
The radio stations dedicated to artists such as Adele, U2 and MySpace co-owner Justin Timberlake will appeal to at least some local music fans. Also, the way that the music player can switch to radio stations based on the last album track a user listened to could help people discover more things that they like in an intuitive and fun way.
Some of the other music services that now have to compete with Myspace Music also offer free content, so this may ultimately come down to which one does the best job of meeting the individual needs of each listener. However, potentially cool things such as about 335 Jack White videos that fans in the Spokane area may not have seen before make a compelling argument for at least giving Myspace Music a fair shot.
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