I gave a test run to MySpace’s new and “improved” music store/community this weekend. I want to give it a little more time, since it literally just came out yesterday, but so far I’m not quite feeling it. Honestly, I don’t spend much time on MySpace these days, I long abandoned it for Facebook as my go-to spot for social networking, but I used to spend a little bit more time there to follow my favorite local/indie/unsigned bands and to learn about newer unsigned bands. In many cases a MySpace page was the only way to follow many of these bands.
But in the past year or so, I’ve found myself skipping MySpace entirely for iLike, Pandora,, Imeem, and (the departed but not forever) Muxtape to discover new music and when I’m ready to buy, go to emusic, iTunes, the band’s website or (!!!) my local record store. So MySpace has really stopped playing the role it did a couple of years ago for me and music. I wonder what MySpace music can do for music fans that the above companies aren’t already doing? Especially in the case of iLike, which isn’t locked into one social network.
That aside, MySpace Music isn’t really offering much to the online music party, in addition to being late to said party, it’s not very well dressed and socially awkward. The interface feels clunky and dated, reminiscent of Yahoo!Music back in the day. The selection is very limited, considering this is essentially a big marriage of convenience between the major labels and MySpace, good luck downloading bands from smaller labels here, or even full discographies of some bigger bands.
The functionality and offerings of MySpace Music will improve, but at this point, does it matter when music fans already have so many superior options to discover, share and (legally) download music?
[…] As I blogged about earlier, at this point the field is getting quite crowded with digital music services, and when MySpace (a former music industry game changer that helped to launch careers) is no longer bringing anything new to the table, what the heck can Facebook do? […]