MySpace Music + Long tail = Indie labels not worthy enough for MySpace
Indie labels have launched MySpace service, giving credit to this social platform to make big players join the party. They’re generating pages and traffic by inciting their artists to jump into that virtual gig that has become MySpace. But by treating music Majors and indie label differently, the News Corp. company may create a situation that finally helps a new music platform to take the floor. And by pressuring its community (indie labels), MySpace is moving from a social platform to a MTV-like music news website.
MySpace is the place to be to get know and hope for fame and glory if you want to join the music industry as an artist. Most of the MySpace community is driven by unknow people and music indie labels, and has created an unprecedent gathering of fans and advocates of music bands and singers. That’s their best asset to me; not that pages views aren’t, but it’s a short-term view. Page views and users can easily move from one site to another, we’ve seen that with Facebook when it started and sucked in all the other social platforms users.
The new relationship built between MySpace, music Majors, and indie labels with the launch of MySpace Music would change the deal: indie labels have found in online social platforms a new way to drive traffic to their artists and generate sells (CDs, MP3 download, reputation, …) and growing concerts attendees, and Majors a new pool of potential buyers for the mass market hits from Majors’ artists. Potential because we’ve seen that the advertising cost has sunk for MySpace, becoming the first online advertising location of the world (meaning they’re selling at ground level their advertising space, cheaper than Facebook- less than $0,75 CPM). And providing an opening for indie labels to go out of MySpace and create a new platform would finally lead to the death of the current biggest music platform.
Death because of the leak of the fans and advocates, the one who create pages and drive traffic (indie label groups, trendsetters who follow indie labels, …) to a new platform if the “indie label” MySpace social platform ever creates, and death because focusing on Majors means selling and creating music content, and starting competing with iTunes, MTV, and offline music stores. Meaningless and hopeless. Death because they’re denying the ones who are making the social platform what it is: the community.
More:
Chris Jahnle | September 30th, 2008 at 1:19 pm #
I appreciate your post and agree with many of the valid points that you are making. I too believe it is essential that MySpace focuses on integrating Independent labels and artists in MySpace Music, in addition to the Majors, as it will definitely give them a leg up in the inevitable competition, as you said, with iTunes and MTV. I had not even considered that MySpace was originally founded as an independent social networking site, and I think that speaks volumes. It has certainly changed over the years. I was wondering: what steps do you think MySpace should take in order to reintroduce Independent labels and artists to their new platform?
You also state that this scenario is “providing an opening for indie labels to go out of MySpace and create a new platform would finally lead to the death of the current biggest music platform.” Do you think this could potentially be better than MySpace seeking out Independent labels and artists for inclusion in MySpace Music?
I recently wrote a post about iTunes 8 and the new Genius search tool. I thought the implementation of such a marketing tool with the iTunes storefront was a huge development, but only for established artists. I feel as though the MySpace features have the potential to be extremely beneficial to those who use the service in the way that they combine specific, new features from a multitude of different social networking and music promotion sites (i.e. imeem, Pandora, iLike, etc.) into one music marketing platform.
However, I agree that to challenge Apple is futile. One of the main points of my recent post about iTunes 8 was the definition by Apple and others of the “opening” for MySpace, or any music platform (even a new one as you said), to assimilate the independent music market – both Independent labels and bands – into a cohesive music promotion and distribution platform. If MySpace focused their site toward being a service provider for Independent artists while simultaneously catering to the needs of mainstream acts and other already established acts on MySpace, they would be in the best position. However, where MySpace currently falls short, like you said, is with their failure to include Independent labels in their deals at this time. Would you prefer MySpace to revert to what it began as; a social networking site driven by Independent artists? Or do you think it should include both Independent labels and artists in addition to mainstream artists from Major labels? Thank you for your post, and any comments are appreciated.
Review of the Internet news of the Day - Fast.Fwd.Innov@tion | October 1st, 2008 at 8:56 pm #
[...] Why The Online Music Industry Should Move To a Rev-Share Model: Memo to the Copyright Royalty Board: a bigger pie fills more bellies. Tomorrow, the three-judge panel that sets rates on music copyright fees is scheduled to announce new rates on digital music downloads for the next five years. The fees, which go to music publishers (the actual owners of the copyright to each song), are currently set at 9 cents per track. Music publishers want to raise that to 15 cents per track… Read more on TechCrunch and here. [...]
Fast.Fwd.Innovation weekly Takeaway - Fast.Fwd.Innov@tion | October 6th, 2008 at 8:21 am #
[...] MySpace Music + Long tail = Indie labels not worthy enough for MySpace: Indie labels have launched MySpace service, giving credit to this social platform to make big players join the party. They’re generating pages and traffic by inciting their artists to jump into that virtual gig that has become MySpace. But by treating music Majors and indie label differently, the News Corp. company may create a situation that finally helps a new music platform to take the floor. And by pressuring its community (indie labels), MySpace is moving from a social platform to a MTV-like music news website… Read more here. [...]