MySpace Music Shutting Down
How’s that grab ya? The announcement hasn’t been made but rumors are swirling that free streaming of music may soon be a thing of the past for MySpace, which would most certainly be the death nell for the website that defined the term “social network” for most people in America. While logic may therefore dictate that the service should stay, the fact is, they’re bleeding like a stuck pig and that can’t go on forever, come hell or high-water.
In this interview with Billboard from June 7th, I stated that the music industry hates itself. And it does. There are warring factions that each represent different groups of rights-holders that defend their turf to the detriment of the entire ecosystem. Publishers, the radio stations, labels and the artists themselves each have their own personal interests at heart when they fight for a bigger piece of the pie, but the result is that legitimate music startups simply cannot afford to pay the fees, and therefore go out of business (or don’t start at all). Why do you think facebook has abstained from offering a free music service for years while MySpace took in so much traffic for that very service alone? And that’s to say nothing of Imeem, Lala, SpiralFrog, and most notably, Yahoo! Music, all of which fell on their own swords and either shut down completely or sold at firesale prices to others.
The move to shut down MySpace Music may come as a result of their advertising contract with Google expiring next month. That relationship brought in $300,000,000 a year for the company, which allowed them to spend in-excess of $10,000,000 per MONTH on streaming services. (Look at all them zeros!)
My prediction is that the shutdown will happen in two painful phases. First, MySpace visitors will be required to log-in to the site in order to hear streaming music. This will reactivate a vast number of otherwise dormant accounts, but it will also eliminate all passive traffic, which they desperately need right now in order to continue selling ads at a sustainable rate. The drop in revenue will ultimately result in the fall of MySpace itself. It will be sold and resold until it is no longer. Remember Napster? It’s nothing but a brand name that changes hands from one music service to another these days; no longer even a shell of its legendary self.
So enjoy it while it lasts, folks. MySpace Music is shutting down. When? Dunno yet, but watch the writing on the wall this summer as they renegotiate their network-wide advertising agreements and continue to make cuts in staff and services in a vain attempt to survive. They lost the war and facebook didn’t even have to compete with them on their most important service to do it.
Related Posts: New MySpace Slogan: Discover and Be Discovered, Goodbye Tom. We Hardly Knew Ye.
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Obviously you’re right that the numbers just aren’t sustainable. But the other big issue for MySpace is that the site, quite simply, sucks. The user experience sucks, the design sucks and it’s infinitely buggier than any other major site I’ve seen (except maybe Twitter, but Twitter is much simpler so there are fewer things to go wrong). It has sucked for years, and even with all the resources of News Corp they don’t seem to be able to fix it. Or maybe they just don’t care. Either way, it makes the already difficult task of attracting and retaining users that much harder.
Completely with you, Sean. They had LOTS of problems that have led to their demise, not the least of it was the immaturity and irresponsibility of the founders once they were acquired by New Corp and the resulting implosion of corporate vision and strategy once they were replaced. I don’t mean to imply that they are going out of business because the music industry hates itself, but it is the reason they will not be able to continue to offer free music streaming services.
When News Corp bought MySpace it started to die. When the founders left the creative vision left as well and MySpace’s fate was sealed. The corporate culture that took over seemed more interested in seeing how many ads they could pack on a page than providing anything new and creative that engaged their users in any meaningful way. It’s sad really, but their passing will leave a void for new artists that needs to be filled.
You’re right again, the music industry is so freaked out it’s cannibalizing itself. Could one of the secrets to a successful startup in the new music business be to not do anything that requires the use of any music that currently exists?
Music sites selling music or referring sales to sellers shouldn’t have to pay a cent to rights-holders for the free advertising they do. The right-holders and/or retailers should pay them a percentage of each sale they make. Isn’t that how iTunes works?
It seems that youtube has captured much of the free music streaming traffic of myspace since I can find any song or video I want to hear on youtube.
Has the increase in free streaming of full songs caused people to buy more or less music? I’m surprised by the number of free full songs out there.
Well, You may find any song that you want to hear on Youtube, but the difference between Myspace and Youtube is that Myspace is a lot way easier to find new bands from all over the world. Youtube is more for a specific song that you already know.
Leo, Do you think YouTube could use an application that would provide its massive audience with a natural & socially compelling opportunity to engage with New Bands?
I think that any advertiser (Bing?) will jump right up and fill in for Google, should Google not want to continue the deal.
Music is just about the only thing that MySpace still has going for it — I think they’ll do anything they can to keep it.