Myspace - The return?

Myspace's influence and  fall from grace is common knowledge, from the place most people got their first taste of social networks, to being sold at a loss of raround $550m in August this year to Specific Media. With Justin Timberlake a key shareholder, Specific CEO, Tim Vanderhook, said at the time “We’re thrilled about the opportunity to rebuild and reinvigorate Myspace,” to which a most people probably rolled their eyes. 

So even with Timberlake on board is it possible to turn it around? A leaked advert earlier this month shows JT taking a lead role in pushing the company, and talks specifically about dropping adverts and ‘non-core features’, hosting more relevant, exclusive content, and working with regular music artists, who would share and curate music content. Myspace is currently in ownership of 42 million songs. And belives that a model like Hulu takes with streaming TV could work,  with unique content rights from major and independent record labels, allowing for ad-backed music video and audio streaming. The plan is to relaunch the site with this as the focus in 2012 “feeding the energy of youth culture”

But is this all too little too late? Not only have people lost faith in the site (when was the last time you went on myspace, let alone updated your page) but the competition has got a lot stronger with facebook & Spotify now working together. Jay Baer president of Convince and Convert digital agencyis sceptical, “I've been working in online since 1994, and there's no such thing as a comeback. There are reconstitutions, there are name changes, there are strategic shifts. But in terms of somebody essentially committing user-satisfaction suicide and somehow sewing their wound shut, it's never happened."

(Read more on the subject at Defected)

What do you think?