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MySpace Music – 5 Winners & 5 Losers

Myspace_music_3
The devil is in the unrevealed and perhaps even un-negotiated details of the just announced MySpace Music joint venture with the major labels. But already some clear winners and looers are already emerging.

WINNERS:

  1. Hits
    MySpace –
    Users will stay on the site and viewing ads longer and music adds a new revenue stream.
  2. SonyBMG, Universal, and WMG – They get to sell stuff where the fans already are.
  3. Facebook & Other Social Networkers – This deal is not exclusive and talks with labels just got easier now that a framework is in place.
  4. Music 2.0 Entrepreneurs – Thanks to Google open social indie content providers can offer competing services alongside the official offers. (or can they?)
  5. Fans – The music you love and your friends all in one place.

LOOSERS:

  1. Thumbsdown_3
    Indie artists and labels –
    The majors are partner’s in this deal; so don’t assume that others will get a fair shake. Remember SnoCap?
  2. imeem and iLike – They’ll have to adapt or risk serving only hard core music heads.
  3. EMI – Sure they’ll end up joining in, but coming late to the party doesn’t make them look good particularly at a time when everyone is watching.
  4. Download Stores – Unless iTunes, Amazon and others start feeling more like music destinations, people (particularly young ones) will be attracted to grabbing music where they discovered it.
  5. Fans – With the major labels co-owning the delivery platform; they’re free to raise prices, set priorities and abuse data.

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4 Comments

  1. i like how the fans are winners AND losers; one question: since so many songs are streaming on MySpace for free, will users now pay for them ?

  2. The major labelss arriving at myspace is a sure sign that myspace will soon be as relevant as Napster.

  3. Yes imeem has a fight on it’s hands, myspace has copied imeem’s strategy to fend of the lawsuits from the record labels. imeem vs myspace isn’t as one sided as it sounds, imeem is in the heart of Silicon Valley and have been able to develop and adapt their site practically overnite.(anyone remember when imeem was an IM/P2P app built by ex-napster developers?)
    Myspace boast 100millions visitors per month, and imeem only claims 20 million. But a visit to quantcast.com shows that 100million people a month see the imeem players on sites around the world, even if they don’t realise the music on their friends myspace page.
    One thing’s for sure, myspace will probably make a lot more effort to ban imeem’s music players from their site, again.

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