- Antony Bruno

NEW YORK MySpace Music has unveiled a number of service enhancements designed to appeal to both users and content providers, including the addition of a music video hub, the ability to purchase tracks through iTunes, and an artist metrics and analytics tool.

The MySpace Music Video hub brings the full music video catalog of all music content partners to the service, as well as various behind-the-scenes and exclusive video content from MySpace events. A new "videos" tab has been added to the "album" and "playlist" options on the service's music player, and "buy" tabs appear on each music video for fans to download the corresponding track. Apple's iTunes has been added as an affiliate sales partner for those and other downloads via MySpace Music, joining Amazon.com.

As part of the deal, MySpace's recently acquired subsidiary iLike now also has access to the same music videos.

MySpace members will get updates when bands they've friended have uploaded new videos, and will also see what music videos their other MySpace friends are viewing or have recently viewed as part of a discovery and recommendation feature.

According to MySpace Music president Courtney Holt, MySpace is hosting all the videos itself.

The Artists Dashboard is aimed more at content providers. The free service lets artists and labels access various metrics about their music and profile pages on demand. This includes songs played, number of streams, profile views by both friends and visitors, and detailed demographic information on fans such as age, gender and geographic location information. 

Trending data is available in seven- and 30-day increments. Song data is available for the top 15 songs played and includes all data gained from iLike profiles and users as well.

While the video service generates revenue through additional ad sales opportunities, the Dashboard is not generate revenue directly. Instead, Holt said the hope is for artists and labels to use the information provided to help drive more views and fan engagement, which in turn will increase site traffic and streams that can be monetized.

"A more intelligent artist will increase engagement overall, and we want to reinforce the value of MySpace to artists," he said. "By providing data analytics, we're providing cause and effect."

The new service rollouts are the first major additions to the MySpace Music service since it launched last year. Still to come are concert ticket and merchandise sales, which Holt said are in progress, but no details yet on when they might be expected.

See also:

"Women More Ravenous for Music Sites"

"Has Music Become Devalued as a Branding Tool?"

"The Not-so-Big Generation Gap in Music Taste"

"Web Music Players Strike a New Chord"



Nielsen Business Media