Put whatever corporate Natta-isms you want on the message (“to transform and refine our international growth strategy”), cutting 66% of its international staff and closing four of its international offices means that MySpace has to finally confront its inability to be a leader in social networking and not skirt the issue by placing blame on the economy.
At a time when indie artists are looking for design improvements, a better music player, the ability to embed tour information and more, MySpace has been caught up in shmoozing the Big 4 to solidify its “we’re the biggest” bragging rights. It relegated the very people who grew the site, the indie artists and labels, to being widgets in a stats-for-sale corporate come-on. The economy is not responsible for MySpace’s reprehensible back-turning.
That said, I’ll be the first to acknowledge MySpace’s role in helping indie artists and labels increase their online visibility. It will remain an historic icon for doing so. But, to let non-music “buddy bandwidth” sites get the edge they’re getting, not just in terms of visitors (Facebook surpassed MySpace in total unique visitors last month) but in their exploration of the latest entertainment-related technological advances and marketing strategies to diversify their offerings and grab more music-based market share, underscores how MySpace has not only been asleep at the wheel but it’s been driving under the influence of self-intoxication.
Tags: Add new tag, facebook, indie artists, indie labels, MySpace, natta, social networking
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:17 am
What do you think that MySpace could do better so that more indie artists would stay? or use the service more?
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:49 pm
I could make a list of things that I believe would make the site look and sound better as well as make it more competitive with the other social media sites. But, the essential issue with MySpace has been that it hasn’t listened to the needs and wants of the indie artists and labels on its site. As soon as MySpace became attractive to the major labels it got so full of itself that it forgot to pay attention to the indies that built it. MySpace got overconfident that other major social sites were not music-based and didn’t consider that they’d naturally evolve as competitors to diversify their offerings to include music. Now, the alarm’s gone off and the other sites have already had their first cup of coffee while MySpace is just waking up to what their competitors are up to.