MySpace... What's the future?

The news that Myspace has been taken over by Specific Media makes me question the future of Myspace more than before. Myspace was previously owned by News Corporation and they paid too much for a failing business that didn't develop fast enough and allowed Facebook to take market share, well that's kinda Sean Parker's view in a recent interview at the NExTWORK Conference.

Now bought for £22m ($35m) and Justin Timberlake is said to be involved, could this be a real chance to change the product on offer for the better or see Myspace to the grave. Its rumoured to help artists to connect to fan but I have seen this before. So what could Myspace do with their reported 50m followers, whom are using it because its the "leading social entertainment platform". Well many of the people I know who use it have it as a kind of music portfolio to extend their fan base and get discovered. Now YouTube has taken this role with people such as Justin Bieber getting discovered here and many other celebrities. Visiting the site recently with my old log in I felt that the site had changed too much and the features were too rich on the homepage, it had no immediate call to action - but several. Myspace needs to redevelop in to a proper entertainment platform where talent can be discovered easily and incorporate a search feature for venues. The platform should allow bookings for artists and connect presenters, musicians, bands, actors etc with those who need them. This is risky but Myspace could turn themselves in to the worlds largest "undiscovered" talent agency which will give people who need talent access to those by location, price, rating and so on.

Social Features? Yes keep the social features, just develop the product better and enter the gap which YouTube has left which is more filtered search and booking features similar to that of peopleperhour but for talent. I don't think that Myspace has finished being a social network and it's not good enough to compete with Facebook which is it's main problem. Look at existing users and create something that can generate more revenue from them and work on creating a product people want. Whether it would work or not is to be seen and tested but they need to have a big shake up to stop the demise of what was the biggest social network back in 2006.

Tell Me What You Think...