iMeem Acquired by MySpace Music: A New Bright Future for MySpace?
In 2005 and 2006, MySpace was the king of the hill. “Web 2.0″ was in its ascendancy, and everyone couldn’t stop talking about MySpace. Kids loved it and were telling their parents and friends, single people flirted and told their single friends, bands loved it and marketed their asses off, while the mainstream media pumped out story after story about privacy protection and predators, and web insiders and geeks snarked about clunky UI and design.
That’s in the past, though. Today, MySpace is still one of the most popular websites on the Internet (#11, according to Alexa, down from #6 in late 2007) but it’s an aging giant. Bands are still there, and lots of people are still there, but the buzz and early adopters and press have all long since moved on.
Over the past year or so, MySpace has looked to brand itself not so much as a social networking site, which has nearly lost its meaning and cache in the age of Facebook and Twitter, but as a social media and music site. This would be a return to its roots really, as Sparxoo notes.
Now, with the completion of MySpace Music’s acquisition of popular social media music website iMeem, MySpace is making serious strides to refresh its brand while gobbling up an additional 16 million monthly users.
It’s a smart move. Bands and artists have invested a lot of time over a period of years building presence on MySpace, so the ability to integrate iMeem’s features and community could really payoff long term. And in a crowded online music space, iMeem has distinguished itself as a popular destination to discover music and socialize with fellow music addicts (for example, if I want a quick fix of “The Breaks,” by Kurtis Blow, I knew I could just head to iMeem, search for the song, sit back and get hit with the funk).
I don’t think that MySpace will ever seriously compete with Facebook again. That battle is over, and MySpace is wise to realize it. If MySpace can hang around and dominate the online music space, battling the likes of AOL Music, Yahoo Music, and startups like Pandora, it may once again have a bright future.
(this post originally appeared on Technorati)
