Myspace seems to be making a comeback of sorts. Well, let’s modify that—various news sites are peering into the service and noting with bemusement that it still exists. So Forbes posted this unflattering headline on Friday: “How To ‘Frankenstein’ Your Brand Like MySpace: The Social Network That Refuses To Die.”
C’mon folks, a little kindness please. Since when was declining to keel over such a disgrace? Anyway, the post notes that Myspace has been emailing old users reminding them that it is still around and that in some instances they still have lots of (possibly embarrassing) photos on the site. This got a small portion of the tech blogosphere’s attention. The word “blackmail” began floating around. But the company told the Delhi Daily News that it is just trying to win back past users and “re-engage them through a personalized experience.”
I never had a Myspace account in the first place, so I set one up. And lo and behold, it turns out that Myspace has a rather nice array of radio channels. Basic genres: pop, rap & hip-hop, rock, country, latin, R&B, electronic, alternative/indie-rock, metal, reggae, blues, jazz, classical, and folk. Each genre leads you to an array of sub-genres, for blues: blues radio, traditional blues radio, early American blues radio, and modern electric blues radio.
I’ve been listening. The curation is good. In any event, judge not lest ye be judged. For example, it turns around that some Apple engineers involved in the development of iTunes Radio and Ping preferred listening to Spotify and Pandora. An Apple source told Buzzfeed music that “Everyone’s excuse was it’s because we work on iTunes, running and closing the app after every code change.” But “it’s really because Spotify has all the free music with a real social platform.”
As for Ping, another source says it died for real in 2012 because “Apple was not interested in making a network — they were interested in making a purchase pusher.” So there.
Meanwhile PerezHilton.com is sad that Twitter did not buy SoundCloud.
“This would have been so amazing!” a Saturday post opines. “Listening to music on Twitter, uploading sounds with your tweets, streaming easily from anywhere, sharing songs with your followers!”
Um, here’s the good news Perez, you can already do all those things without the merger. In fact, SoundCloud leads the music social networking world in tweets. And Forbes take notice: Myspace ranks number six on the top ten tweet list.
Here’s another institution that isn’t dead (and I’m glad).
We cover social music sharing communities every Monday in our Internet DJ feature.
