In the romantic novel Gone with the wind written in 1936 by Margaret Micthell, the novel’s protagonist, Scarlet O’Hara, uses the title phrase when her home is overtaken by the Yankees, she wonders to herself if her home is still standing, or if it was “also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia.” Today, in the year 2011 social media users are asking themselves if the once top visited social media site Myspace, is still standing, or if it has been overtaken by Facebook and Twitter, who have more than 800 million users combined. At the same time investors, and users, are also wondering If Myspace still has a chance of reinvent itself to avoid an evident death.
Among the alternatives that can save Myspace from a painful demise, focusing on a niche market and finding integration among music artist, movies, and television shows seems to be the most appealing. In fact, in an interview with The New York Times Michael Jones, the president of Myspace, a unit of News Corporation, said that the more than 120 million Myspace members were primarily using the site to listen to music and share opinions and information about that music, as well as about movies and television shows. Therefore, the company had decided to revamp its Website, narrowing its focus on entertainment for people 13 to 35 years of age, also known as Generation Y. And Mr. Jones said Myspace would no longer seek to compete with Facebook, but rather to complement it. “Our focus is social entertainment,” he said. “Niche players have long staying power.”
Unfortunately, succeeding with this new strategy will not be easy. “They are definitely trying to become more relevant again,” said Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst at eMarketer. “But it is going to be hard, because so much time has gone by.” As with any product, technology also has a life cycle in which those who become too complacent and lack innovation can never make it back. And while Myspace is already creating joint ventures with music companies, that niche is already under attack by new comers like Reverbenation and Bandcamp.
Besides failing to innovate and be competing in a market that has been attacked already by many other sites, statistics gathered by metric companies such as Compete.com, and Alexa.com have only signaled a strong decline in users and daily visits to the Myspace. According to recent reports, the site had 54.4 million users at the end of November 2011, a loss of more than nine million from the previous year. These findings only confirm that as the house of Scarlet O’Hara in the popular 1936 novel, Myspace is officially gone with the wind.
(Video taken from Currentv.com)
Norberto Munoz
A Marketing Dose!
References:
• The death of Myspace
http://www.pedestrian.tv/entertainment/features/the-death-of-myspace-a-former-employee-looks-back/31505.htm
• Hot Social Networking Site Cools as Facebook Grows
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/technology/internet/12myspace.html?ref=myspacecom
• For Myspace, a Redesign to Entice Generation Y
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/technology/27myspace.html?ref=myspacecom
• How to Save Myspace from a Slow and Painful Death
http://e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com/2011/03/savingmyspace.html
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ReplyDeleteHaving songs from your favorite artists readily available to listen for free on Myspace was one of it's greatest features and the main reason i joined. If they stick with this idea and elaborate on it, Myspace may be able to attract old users back, but i doubt it will ever reach it's previous success.
ReplyDeleteLoved the video at the end :) --made me think about deleting my account lol
I agree "Myspace has gone with the wind". In my opinion it might be too late for them to comeback, its failure to innovate and create something different has cause them to go downhill at a rapid pace. Also, Myspace has fail to understand that most people like to keep things simple, that is why Facebook is on the top of the social networks.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post, MySpace is gone. They no longer provide users the same interaction they once use to. There only strong feature over Facebook is the music, but even that people are finding it elsewhere, now Ping from iTunes. MySpace will need new everything to be a space we visit again.
ReplyDeleteI believe MySpace is already 'Gone with the wind', however you pointed out a really interesting niche market among music artists. Facebook is far from the way MySpace works with music and videos,but MySpace would have to come up with new ways to interact with the followers so they will remain visiting.
ReplyDelete