Despite the current economic crisis, and the resulting chaos in the music industry, President of Myspace Music, Courtney Holt remains “cautiously optimistic” that they will remain successful in building an “innovative online business.”
In a recent interview, Holt told Billboard Mag that since he accepted the presidency at Myspace Music, they have:
- made tweaks to Myspace Music’s search engine
- added new playlist features
- improved the music player
These tweaks have contributed to:
- 40% spike in search engine traffic
- the creation of 105 million active playlists by Myspace Music users
- more than 5.3 billion average aggregate minutes spent listening to music in January alone
- new advertising partnerships with companies like, Toyota, Visa, McDonalds, Kmart and Adidas
WHAT HAVE THEY DONE FOR THE ARTIST?
Well in the beginning, Myspace was not a full service music outlet, rather it was more of an online media where music existed via artist pages, profile page playlists, search engine and the front page. Since Holt, Myspace Music has evolved into a full service music outlet.
In the interview, Holt states that:
“The album got lost in the digital eveolution of music. When the CD boom happened, it was all about repurchasing albums for portability and digital sound. In the current evolution of music, people didn’t need albums anymore. They started getting excited about tracks. The album has become a fairly unique format. The album’s more relevant than ever, it’s just in a different type of audience.”
Holt argued that collaboration is key in the business and outlined that Myspace Music operates along 4 planes – “major superstar artists, artists that are well-known but a bit more niche, key independent artists and unsigned artists.”
Obviously, Holt and his team are interested in having “bilateral” discussions and have not positioned themselves as puppets for the major labels.
Future plans for Myspace Music include:
- Broad based music video offering
- Ticketing
- Merchandise
Holt ended by adding that the team was most interested in tapping into the percentage of the market that is unsure of artist touring activities and will attend shows only if they know that their friends are going.
Holt and his team has expanded the service of Myspace Music while continuing to tap into the social networking model.
I think a Myspace Music page should be a #1 must have for all musicians…young or old.
What do you think?
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Unfortunately this is MySpace propoganda- MySpace Music has been a tremendous flop from the revenue perspective, as well as a very poor supporter of indie and unsigned musicians (who really helped build MySpace in the first place as a music destination).
Musicians should have a page on MySpace of their own creation, although even this is less relevant now as Facebook and Twitter continue to ascend, but most indie and unsigned acts could not get their music in the actual revenue portion of MySpace Music even if they tried.
The bottom line is that iTunes is still number 1 in generating digital sales revene for artists of all stripes, 70% and up for most, with the remaining 30% encompassing ALL other digital retail outlets, including Amazon (who many thought would give Apple serious competition in this space, but has failed to do so). As for buzz, social media networking, viral and guerrilla promotion, etc. yes having a MySpace page is still something you should do, but it is not as essential as it was, nor is it the primary artist destination that many indie artists used it as a year or two ago.