No kidding. Gonna take me some time to grok this one. My immediate reaction from only the video is that it looks beautiful but far more complicated than FB or G+ or something. Still, remarkable transformation.
Does anybody except for musicians use Myspace still? Regardless of the answer, I'm still not sure why artists would continue using myspace in the first place.
Artist go where the fans are ... Last checked, they aren't on myspace, And most likely this redesign will not change that fact. Also, when was the last time you heard a artist give out the myspace page during and interview?
This honestly makes me glad I regained access to my Myspace account and I'm looking forward to trying it out with my bands' pages. I can't think of anyone (bands included) actively touting their Myspace pages but it looks like JT's influence in the company may pay off afterall.
In a desktop browser? I can believe it. It's the Pinterest interface except horizontal. I see gradients, html5 video, opacity, position fixed. The only unbelievable thing about this video is the lack of loading time to load any content.
To me, Pinterest interface means random pictures and captions displayed in arbitrary sizes and order. When watching the preview video, the first thing I thought was "horizontal Pinterest".
That interface is entirely possible in a browser. Blurring the concept of software and web applications is entirely the trend that people should be pushing towards.
The preview looks great. I just don't understand why anyone would come back to something they've already moved on from to do things they're already doing elsewhere.
That said, I genuinely wish them the best of luck! :-)
It's all about focusing on the creative producers, Facebook still isn't the best place for those types, it's good because that's where fans are but it's not really the best tool.
Sure, I get that. But most of the people I know in bands use something else - bandcamp,soundcloud, whatever. Those who listen are using spotify, grooveshark, rdio, whatever. Photographers use flickr, instagram, designers use dribbble, etc etc. My friends all chat on facebook, twitter or g+ - the list goes on.
It's great that they're trying - I used to love MySpace! But I can't see why anyone would choose to go back when other services are doing it better and your friends, family, colleagues and celebrities (and where appropriate fans and audiences) are there already.
I hate being negative about it, and I really look forward to trying it - they just have a long road ahead.
"""But most of the people I know in bands use something else - bandcamp,soundcloud, whatever. Those who listen are using spotify, grooveshark, rdio, whatever. Photographers use flickr, instagram, designers use dribbble, etc etc. My friends all chat on facebook, twitter or g+ - the list goes on."""
Does it not seem though that this redesign seems to be hitting the middleground of this cluster of services? It seems like this could be a very relevant move for Myspace when, as you say, most people use either soundcloud or grooveshark or instagram or tumblr or facebook or etc etc. This redesign, even if it is a concept, seems to touch upon all of these. Which mightn't attract hardcore users who need flickr or bandcamp, but it might attract everyone else who wants to need all the above. I dunno, it all seems very relevant to me.
For most things I don't want a middle ground, though. I want spotify which beautifully plays all the albums I want, when and where I want them, and does it well. I want to look at my instagram stream in bed when I get up in the morning, use twitter at work, etc. I have no interest in mixing them.
I mean - my musician friends love bandcamp and soundcloud - why would they go back to MySpace when other sites are doing the job perfectly and the audience is there?
I just think that selling a middle ground is a lot harder than selling something brilliant.
You and I, and probably everybody on HN, know what we want though, in terms of the services we use. We're a niche, and actual musicians and artists etc are a niche userbase too, and they wont stop using whatever the hot thing is in their area (soundcloud, let's say). So without sounding too flippant, if Myspace can make the average person think that all the cool people are there, that's where the average person will go, especially if it's as accessible (in terms of the breadth of things it offers) and hip as the preview suggests.
I suppose I just think that not everybody needs, wants or cares about cool. I agree that often the average person will follow the tastemakers, but if you can't keep the tastemakers there, or it's just too out there for the average person (like crazy clothing trends, for instance), you limit yourself to just the fringe.
We may have to agree to disagree :-) It'll be interesting to follow it, though, right?
It seems to me that this might strike a very relevant and "on trend" balance between the needs of the average person, hip circles, and creative circles. Furthermore, the redesign makes Facebook's recentish redesign look very clunky and amateurish; this design is very very fresh. I think it's a fairly interesting development.
I think pushing hip will be tough whilst still under the myspace banner, Timberlake or not. Perhaps a complete rebrand would have helped.
Trouble is, often big pictures and slick graphics isn't what the average person wants - they just want it to work, and work well - it's why everyone moved from MySpace to fb in the first place.
Absolutely. As good as the redesign is, the Myspace brand seems like a total dead duck. It almost caused a sense of panicked inner confusion in me to see such a pretty design followed by the Myspace logo.
I'd argue with you about big pictures and slick graphics not being what the average person wants: I think there's been a big move towards having a sense of hipness to your online identity, e.g. instagram, tumblr, even twitter for a period, etc, and it seems like this might be an accessible route towards that for the average, unhip, user. Facebook has been uncool for quite a while now, basically. And G+ doesn't even deserve a mention in terms of hipness.
Haha yes, it would have been a whole lot more interesting under a new banner!
I think your average person and your average hipster are very different people... I suppose we'll have to see what crowd they're going after? I can pretty much guarantee this would just confuse my folks, and I have a lot of friends who religiously use Facebook, but they do so because it's not like this.
You're totally right, but i think just the fact that you've said "this will confuse my folks" (it'd confuse mine too) shows that change has to come at some stage in terms of the dominant social network. Maybe Myspace wont be it but, Facebook just isn't cool anymore.
Maybe the problem is it's always going to feel like a MySpace reboot under the MySpace banner? And I'm with you - something entirely fresh would be fantastic (whether that's trying to attract everyone or a more niche audience), the worry is this ends up becoming exactly as you said above - just another new music-sharing social site - that doesn't attract anyone (long term).
Still, my fingers are crossed and I'm looking forward to giving it a go.
There's a burgeoning disenfranchisement with Facebook IMO. People for whom Facebook is getting tired and old and for whom the interface is a drag may well be perfectly placed to jump [back].
This does look like they've refocussed back to the roots (?) of MySpace and gone tailored things towards bands/music again.
Bands was what MySpace did best. It'll be interesting to see if it can lure any back (or the audience for the bands - chicken, egg?).
Absolutely agree with the Facebook disenfranchisement. I often wonder if FB has just got too 'bitty' - would people prefer something like the super simple Facebook of yesteryear?!
It would be interesting to see MySpace really attack Facebook by having a really really good privacy agreement etc, but if it's too nice they'll have the same monetization issues that Facebook does.
I'm actually pretty impressed with this both in their direction and design. Focusing on the creative producers was what they should have done in the first place.
My thoughts exactly, this is something very refreshing/futuristic and after showing to friends who are both artists/non-artists they love the new UI. Congrats myspace.
One point, you can tell this is a total work in progress/concept, and that the UI is also most likely staged at this point.
(I make this observation based on the fact that every post had "12 Connects", "3 Comments" and "2 Shares". Surely if you put this much effort into production of a video you would change these numbers?)
Anyway, features which I picked up from the video...
- Photo Sharing/Uploading
- Heavy Emphasis on Music
- Insights/Stats for presumably Bands
- Radio
- Some weird feature called "affinity" that matches your online identity to Justin Timberlake?
In the final shot, It also looked like Instagram filters were applied to every profile picture?
As expected, MySpace is clearly placing a heavy emphasis on a community driven around bands and music. But, I just fail to see how they are going to get a strong user base, just considering most/all bands are content and happy with Facebook and integration with the vast supply of Band Related apps...
The use of horizontal scroll in the video is probably some way from fully refined too - there was no obvious chrome to facilitate the panning, which doesn't often work well outside of touch devices.
> (I make this observation based on the fact that every post had "12 Connects", "3 Comments" and "2 Shares". Surely if you put this much effort into production of a video you would change these numbers?)
I don't think it says that all. The last thing I do when designing a page is hook it up to a data source.
Nothing in this video looks that difficult to implement. Difficult to make cross-browser compatible, most likely.
Am i wrong in saying that Myspace seemed to stay relevant for longer than it possibly should have purely because musicians and bands seemed to have an affection for it, for whatever reason? I know that even up until recently, when i've searched for local musicians, their Myspace page is still very high in search rankings, and i still often (somehow) find myself listening to local band's music via Myspace.
If they're going to put a focus in any area, for a redesign, it seems like music is the ticket.
As far as website designs go, this preview is stunning, even if it is just a mockup.
...because musicians and bands seemed to have an affection for it, for whatever reason?
You mean distribution agencies have an affection for it. Myspace has been around forever, so it comes up high on Google, so the guys in charge of putting St. Vincent's music online maintain her Myspace account in addition to her Facebook, iTunes, etc. The artists themselves don't really care, they just want to be everywhere that ears and eyeballs are.
As far as this preview goes, it looks very much like Windows 8. You can tell there's people still just throwing money at the Myspace name, which surprises me. I thought it was pretty much a dead brand.
Let's wait and see. Keep in mind, the video is pretty frenetically cut. The video is designed to provoke awe, but I suspect the interface is less "out there" in practice.
The only functional problem with windows 8 metro I find is it's exclusiveness. I think windows 8 has a terrific UI for an application, just not for an OS. Give me windows 7 desktop where on the press of the windows key I get a windows 8 metro overlay like steam/xbox 360/ps3/etc, and I'd probably love it.
Musicians like myspace because you can customize your homepage. And it's accepted to send invites to random people. On Facebook you don't have either of these. Also they added music friendly features such as letting users select your tune as their homepage theme song. As a musician I've found Myspace to be invaluable.
I think they face stiff competition from soundcloud. But a big problem with soundcloud is the amount of spammy bands that comment on songs and the lack of casual listeners like on myspace.
The big advantage of Myspace (for me) is that I can access the songs of bands much easier without logging in.
I still don't have a Facebook user - and myspace worked for me all the time without a user, but Facebook didn't work.
It's the - "hey there is a show with some bands I don't know, let's go on Myspace and check them quickly out" - that Myspace excelled in. No login, just listening to some of their songs, maybe watch some pics, check out their tour dates and that's it.
But they have lost their edge - now everyone is on FB. But most of the bands still have a (mostly) unused Myspace profile.
I don't know why, but for some reason I felt that, while reading your comment, you were for some reason biased towards wanting to find faults in MySpace's announcement.
Just because the UI is staged, it doesn't mean they won't be able to execute on it- matter of fact, with a team the size of myspace's, they'll likely do execute, and execute it well.
You mentioned that the video clearly used test data, but seemed to forget that when mentioning the affinity feature.
Maybe they sync people's instagram photos on their myspace profile.
Point being, give Myspace a fair change. They're certainly not the new kid on the block, are experienced, and this seems like a good new effort.
"But, I just fail to see how they are going to get a strong user base"
Why not some integration with Pandora, where you can create user specific radio stations based off of the band's Myspace profile, that is also linked to their tour schedule etc etc?
Then all Pandora users who have a station created from that band can be notified either though a push notification or e-mail when they are playing a club within a 30 mi radius?
Integrating with the current Pandora userbase would fix the "how will they build a userbase?" and then Pandora would have another venue to access unsigned bands that they can promote through their Music Genome Project.
The company I work for (Josephmark) was hired by MySpace to redesign the site and create something radically different. The interface you see was created by a few talented designers, the video you say was staged is definitely not staged. What you are seeing is what the new MySpace will look like when it's ready to launch. Yes, the site is focusing music - the new MySpace is going to be a social music platform because it has always and still is MySpace's biggest strength (they have access to more music and videos than anyone else), when you have more music than Spotify it would be crazy to try and target a different niche. it has been mentioned by MySpace themselves in interviews about the new site it's a music product. MySpace are not trying to compete with Facebook, if anything their new competitors are now Spotify, Last.fm and Rdio. The very fact you can login with your Facebook is proof of this enough.
The new MySpace is very much a music product. It has a fresh, crisp interface and it's smooth, sexy & fast. It's the fastest and best performing MySpace by far. What you see is the impressive work of the MySpace development team who have done an amazing job at taking ambitious designs and turning them into something captivating and interactive.
Don't judge the site people until you try it. From a developer perspective, I think most people here on HN will appreciate how technologically advanced and smooth the new MySpace is which has been built from the ground up when it's launched. As you can see it's more than a mere re-skinning of the old MySpace code base.
Thanks mate, I'll pass the praise on to the design team. I'm on the dev team here, so my involvement hasn't been as great as theirs. The response from the video seems to be pretty positive, hopefully everyone is just as impressed when the final site is ready for the public to use. I am a bit biased here because I'm proud of the work my colleagues have done, but it definitely is one of the nicest looking music products out there.
Visually I think it's rather pleasing. It's different and the horizontal scrolling might not be everyone's cup of tea, but screens seem to be getting wider so it makes sense that sites start adopting a more horizontal oriented approach to web design to accommodate larger resolution screens.
I do find it kind of ironic the design team use Mac's and people are saying that the new MySpace looks like it got inspiration from the Windows 8 Metro / People Hub, haha.
> It's different and the horizontal scrolling might not be everyone's cup of tea, but screens seem to be getting wider so it makes sense that sites start adopting a more horizontal oriented approach to web design to accommodate larger resolution screens.
It seems very tablet like. Side scrolling isn't a big deal on a touch device. Not sure how I'd like it in a browser with a mouse that only scrolls one way, but the video looks nice at least.
I for one can't read Facebook's timeline and that uses downward scrolling. I don't quite get why I find it so difficult. I really can't get on with it. I'm fine with one column (but two - is a complete mind warp for me.)
It's probably an alignment issue with my brain scrabbling to differentiate content.
I'm also a fan of paging over scrolling. So it will be interesting to feel how this works. Perhaps scrolling with the finger lets you focus better than scrolling with the keyboard or pointer.
I just wanted to chime in and say that the space that MySpace once dominated is an entirely different one now.
MySpace is the underdog here. They will have a very hard time convincing people to join them.
I've used SoundCloud since 2008, when it was invite only and mainly known on obscure electronic music production forums. Sure, way back in the stone age musicians and producers used MySpace, but most of us were happy to get away from it as far as we could the moment an alternative appeared. SoundCloud is minimalist in nature. It focuses on the music. That's why it wins. MySpace started to look like GeoCities.
Nowadays MySpace is a wasteland, you have some big media content and thousands of dead accounts.
Arctic Monkeys were the poster child of a successful MySpace band and their last login was over a year ago.
And anyways, judging from the new look, the new MySpace still focuses on looks. Do we need another big content outlet? Shit, if you are into pop music you've probably already subscribed to VEVO's YouTube channel.
Virb tried to pull a MySpace and they failed.
Soundcloud + Bandcamp offer enough for most musicians. Add Facebook, YouTube and iTunes and most users will be happy too. Why would we need anything else?
Bullshit. Go ask a twelve year old who's going to start creating their online persona this year what Myspace is. They won't know what you're talking about.
MySpace was an exclusive club for "99-year old girls" to fawn over their favorite bands, or for older boys boys to post pictures of "hot babes" to impress others in their age group.
Meh, the kids won't care. If some popular people use it because it's way more fun and exciting than shitty old Facebook, (plus they hear the odd story about how fun the old MySpace was) then it could get it's foot in the door.
Judging by displayed design, it definitely feels more fresh than Facebook and Twitter. I see strong influence of Microsoft's metro design language as well...
Meh, the kids won't care. If some popular people use it because it's way more fun and exciting than shitty old Facebook, (plus they hear the odd story about how fun the old MySpace was) then it could get it's foot in the door.
History has some examples of legacy brands being revived. Mini, Hush Puppies, Pabst Blue Ribbon are some of the known examples. Forever and never is a really long time.
Being on the edge but akin to old school is actually valued in music subculture. So while Facebook becomes a tired commodity, MySpace does have a shot in getting back as a 'true skool' brand for a music social network. Think of hip crowd looking back at the 80s and 90s for inspiration.
If this was billed as "FooBar: Justin Timberlake's new music social network" I would have signed up for an invite instantly. However, "sign up for an invite to MySpace" seems uncompelling. It'll be just as hard for them turn around the name MySpace as it would be for a night club that has become passe.
(Maybe it's just me... I also signed up for an invite to WireDoo.)
I tentatively disagree. If the service isn't leaps and bounds ahead of the competition, I think this could be a huge flop. However, if they can actually deliver, I can imagine this generating a huge amount of interest. "The return of MySpace" is a fairly compelling story, after all - if they pull it off.
Yeah. I'm a UI Designer and I really like the aesthetics of this sort of interface, although I'm not totally on-board on reducing the total content on-screen in favor of endless scrolling GIGANTIC TEXT and images.
It's good for browsing but terrible for finding something specific, which is why it's a good interface for Pinterest and a terrible interface for Windows 8. It's probably a good interface for MySpace 2.0.
The big thing about it is the horizontal scrolling.. that works really well on an ipad, but not so well on the screen. This is definitely a tablet-oriented design ...
Can you explain more why? My monitor is 16:9, my iPad home button suggests is should be held 3:4, and at best is 4:3, which is not as well suited for side scrolling as modern monitors, which are wider than they are tall.
It's as big of an issue on my OSX touchpad devices, as I can scroll sideways with the same gesture I use to scroll vertically. But on any device where my primary HCI device is a mouse, it requires finding the horizontal scrollbar and click-dragging it. It's also not typically what people expect out of a website outside of the touch realm, which breaks a pretty primary rule in UI design (don't present the user with something they don't expect).
Yes. Metro as a design language is essentially a style guide that appears to be defining a large number of current sites in the way the "Web 2.0 look" did back between 2005-2009 (rounded corners, gradients, Verdana, etc.)
Our superpowers have detected you're using an outdated browser. That must mean:
a You don't use the Internet very often.
b You're at your parents' place on the PC they bought in 1996.
c You work for the government or a big corporation.
There's still hope. If you answered a or b, all you need to do is click on one of the beautiful icons below, follow the instructions and you'll be enjoying the new Myspace in a jiffy.
Yeah, "d - You don't usually jump through hoops to get a demo website working in your perfectly capable browser" must have been left off the list accidentally.
Really nice concept. I liked the map especially. I wonder about the navigation - it would be probably cool to include a lot of keyboard shortcuts scrolling up and down.
Imagine if facebook would suddenly come up with a such a drastic redesign. Half of the users would probably have no idea what is happening.
274 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 265 ms ] threadThat said, it's a nice concept.
Right?
Second thought: ... Okay, I might be a little bit excited to see how this plays out.
(Particularly like the searching ideas.)
That said, I genuinely wish them the best of luck! :-)
It's great that they're trying - I used to love MySpace! But I can't see why anyone would choose to go back when other services are doing it better and your friends, family, colleagues and celebrities (and where appropriate fans and audiences) are there already.
I hate being negative about it, and I really look forward to trying it - they just have a long road ahead.
Does it not seem though that this redesign seems to be hitting the middleground of this cluster of services? It seems like this could be a very relevant move for Myspace when, as you say, most people use either soundcloud or grooveshark or instagram or tumblr or facebook or etc etc. This redesign, even if it is a concept, seems to touch upon all of these. Which mightn't attract hardcore users who need flickr or bandcamp, but it might attract everyone else who wants to need all the above. I dunno, it all seems very relevant to me.
I mean - my musician friends love bandcamp and soundcloud - why would they go back to MySpace when other sites are doing the job perfectly and the audience is there?
I just think that selling a middle ground is a lot harder than selling something brilliant.
I suppose I just think that not everybody needs, wants or cares about cool. I agree that often the average person will follow the tastemakers, but if you can't keep the tastemakers there, or it's just too out there for the average person (like crazy clothing trends, for instance), you limit yourself to just the fringe.
We may have to agree to disagree :-) It'll be interesting to follow it, though, right?
Trouble is, often big pictures and slick graphics isn't what the average person wants - they just want it to work, and work well - it's why everyone moved from MySpace to fb in the first place.
It looks really pretty, though!
I'd argue with you about big pictures and slick graphics not being what the average person wants: I think there's been a big move towards having a sense of hipness to your online identity, e.g. instagram, tumblr, even twitter for a period, etc, and it seems like this might be an accessible route towards that for the average, unhip, user. Facebook has been uncool for quite a while now, basically. And G+ doesn't even deserve a mention in terms of hipness.
I think your average person and your average hipster are very different people... I suppose we'll have to see what crowd they're going after? I can pretty much guarantee this would just confuse my folks, and I have a lot of friends who religiously use Facebook, but they do so because it's not like this.
I'm actually much more interested in a MySpace reboot than just another new "music-sharing social site".
Still, my fingers are crossed and I'm looking forward to giving it a go.
This does look like they've refocussed back to the roots (?) of MySpace and gone tailored things towards bands/music again.
Absolutely agree with the Facebook disenfranchisement. I often wonder if FB has just got too 'bitty' - would people prefer something like the super simple Facebook of yesteryear?!
One point, you can tell this is a total work in progress/concept, and that the UI is also most likely staged at this point.
(I make this observation based on the fact that every post had "12 Connects", "3 Comments" and "2 Shares". Surely if you put this much effort into production of a video you would change these numbers?)
Anyway, features which I picked up from the video...
- Photo Sharing/Uploading
- Heavy Emphasis on Music
- Insights/Stats for presumably Bands
- Radio
- Some weird feature called "affinity" that matches your online identity to Justin Timberlake?
In the final shot, It also looked like Instagram filters were applied to every profile picture?
As expected, MySpace is clearly placing a heavy emphasis on a community driven around bands and music. But, I just fail to see how they are going to get a strong user base, just considering most/all bands are content and happy with Facebook and integration with the vast supply of Band Related apps...
[1] https://new.myspace.com/play
I don't think it says that all. The last thing I do when designing a page is hook it up to a data source.
Nothing in this video looks that difficult to implement. Difficult to make cross-browser compatible, most likely.
If they're going to put a focus in any area, for a redesign, it seems like music is the ticket.
As far as website designs go, this preview is stunning, even if it is just a mockup.
You mean distribution agencies have an affection for it. Myspace has been around forever, so it comes up high on Google, so the guys in charge of putting St. Vincent's music online maintain her Myspace account in addition to her Facebook, iTunes, etc. The artists themselves don't really care, they just want to be everywhere that ears and eyeballs are.
As far as this preview goes, it looks very much like Windows 8. You can tell there's people still just throwing money at the Myspace name, which surprises me. I thought it was pretty much a dead brand.
I think they face stiff competition from soundcloud. But a big problem with soundcloud is the amount of spammy bands that comment on songs and the lack of casual listeners like on myspace.
Autoplaying music on any page, even a bands is a bad idea.
I still don't have a Facebook user - and myspace worked for me all the time without a user, but Facebook didn't work. It's the - "hey there is a show with some bands I don't know, let's go on Myspace and check them quickly out" - that Myspace excelled in. No login, just listening to some of their songs, maybe watch some pics, check out their tour dates and that's it.
But they have lost their edge - now everyone is on FB. But most of the bands still have a (mostly) unused Myspace profile.
Just because the UI is staged, it doesn't mean they won't be able to execute on it- matter of fact, with a team the size of myspace's, they'll likely do execute, and execute it well.
You mentioned that the video clearly used test data, but seemed to forget that when mentioning the affinity feature.
Maybe they sync people's instagram photos on their myspace profile.
Point being, give Myspace a fair change. They're certainly not the new kid on the block, are experienced, and this seems like a good new effort.
Why not some integration with Pandora, where you can create user specific radio stations based off of the band's Myspace profile, that is also linked to their tour schedule etc etc?
Then all Pandora users who have a station created from that band can be notified either though a push notification or e-mail when they are playing a club within a 30 mi radius?
Integrating with the current Pandora userbase would fix the "how will they build a userbase?" and then Pandora would have another venue to access unsigned bands that they can promote through their Music Genome Project.
Just a thought off the top of my head.
The new MySpace is very much a music product. It has a fresh, crisp interface and it's smooth, sexy & fast. It's the fastest and best performing MySpace by far. What you see is the impressive work of the MySpace development team who have done an amazing job at taking ambitious designs and turning them into something captivating and interactive.
Don't judge the site people until you try it. From a developer perspective, I think most people here on HN will appreciate how technologically advanced and smooth the new MySpace is which has been built from the ground up when it's launched. As you can see it's more than a mere re-skinning of the old MySpace code base.
Great work!
It looks stunning I hope it works as well as it looks cause that is probably more important than the visual aesthetics.
Visually I think it's rather pleasing. It's different and the horizontal scrolling might not be everyone's cup of tea, but screens seem to be getting wider so it makes sense that sites start adopting a more horizontal oriented approach to web design to accommodate larger resolution screens.
I do find it kind of ironic the design team use Mac's and people are saying that the new MySpace looks like it got inspiration from the Windows 8 Metro / People Hub, haha.
It seems very tablet like. Side scrolling isn't a big deal on a touch device. Not sure how I'd like it in a browser with a mouse that only scrolls one way, but the video looks nice at least.
It's probably an alignment issue with my brain scrabbling to differentiate content.
I'm also a fan of paging over scrolling. So it will be interesting to feel how this works. Perhaps scrolling with the finger lets you focus better than scrolling with the keyboard or pointer.
MySpace is the underdog here. They will have a very hard time convincing people to join them.
I've used SoundCloud since 2008, when it was invite only and mainly known on obscure electronic music production forums. Sure, way back in the stone age musicians and producers used MySpace, but most of us were happy to get away from it as far as we could the moment an alternative appeared. SoundCloud is minimalist in nature. It focuses on the music. That's why it wins. MySpace started to look like GeoCities.
Nowadays MySpace is a wasteland, you have some big media content and thousands of dead accounts.
Arctic Monkeys were the poster child of a successful MySpace band and their last login was over a year ago.
And anyways, judging from the new look, the new MySpace still focuses on looks. Do we need another big content outlet? Shit, if you are into pop music you've probably already subscribed to VEVO's YouTube channel.
Virb tried to pull a MySpace and they failed.
Soundcloud + Bandcamp offer enough for most musicians. Add Facebook, YouTube and iTunes and most users will be happy too. Why would we need anything else?
I don't know whether to call this a gross generalization or plain wrong, but it's both.
I'm not sure it ever matured from there.
Being on the edge but akin to old school is actually valued in music subculture. So while Facebook becomes a tired commodity, MySpace does have a shot in getting back as a 'true skool' brand for a music social network. Think of hip crowd looking back at the 80s and 90s for inspiration.
(Maybe it's just me... I also signed up for an invite to WireDoo.)
We can stop competing on how many people can fit in one vid chat and start actually adding some value again.
Here's hoping there is an app eco-system with serious social channels for mobile.
They told the most numerous user that she is ""just"" a fan.
Not so fast!
Our superpowers have detected you're using an outdated browser. That must mean:
a You don't use the Internet very often.
b You're at your parents' place on the PC they bought in 1996.
c You work for the government or a big corporation.
There's still hope. If you answered a or b, all you need to do is click on one of the beautiful icons below, follow the instructions and you'll be enjoying the new Myspace in a jiffy.
Imagine if facebook would suddenly come up with a such a drastic redesign. Half of the users would probably have no idea what is happening.