MySpace Redesigned Site & iPhone App Brings Music Streaming

MySpace is joining the music streaming business with the latest redesign of its website and new iOS app. The new site is designed to be a marketing platform for creative works and includes music streaming on both the site and in the app. The company hopes that musicians and artists will use their MySpace page as the destination for all things about their band. The redesign has been in the works for two years, including a beta version of the site. The company has repositioned itself as a "social network for the creative community," Chris Vanderhook, COO of MySpace told AppNewser. As Tim Vanderhook, CEO of MySpace explained it, artists use lots of social media channels online, but they want one home online. The redesign is intended to be an online home for artists and is full of tools to help enable that. One of the big features to launch with the redesign is called My Radio, an ad-supported music streaming platform with more than 53 million songs available. "We’re building tools for artist, but we are enabling for music discovery for consumers," said Tim Vanderhook. While the music streaming business has many competitors including Spotify, Pandora and even Twitter, Google and Apple, MySpace plans to differentiate itself with personalized radio stations. Instead of using an algorithm to create radio stations for an artist based on similar music like other sites, MySpace lets artists personally program radio stations with what they are listening to. It's more like artist as a DJ, than a recommendation based on keywords. At launch, MySpace has 25 programmed radio stations from artists including Snoop Dogg, Steve Angello and Justin Timberlake. It's not just for established artists. In the name of social media, anyone can make a station. Emerging indie bands, radio DJs, or just your everyday music fan. "We tried to go after a bigger idea and give everyone in the world their own radio station, so artists can now have their own radio stations," said Tim Vanderhook. "Now anyone in the world can become a DJ." Unlike Apple's new music streaming service, consumers cannot purchase songs from within MySpace, but artists will be paid ad revenues when their songs are played. The mobile app is a simplified version of the new redesign is focused on My Radio. It makes it easy for users to listen to music while on-the-go. "Most consumers in mobile wanted the simplicity of radio versus the complexity of figuring out what to play next like they want online," said Chris Vanderhook. The iPhone version launches today. The company has an iPad version, as well as an Android version in the works and expects to launch those editions later this year.

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MySpace Redesigned Site & iPhone App Brings Music Streaming

Dianna Dilworth

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Dianna Dilworth