On Monday, MySpace re-launched its long-awaited site with a hyped up campaign that went largely unnoticed. We asked five MySpace-familiar young professionals their opinion on the site as they checked it out for the first time. Here is what they had to say about everything from its functionality to hits and misses of the new design, its effectiveness as a promotional tool, and predictions of MySpace’s popularity.
“It’s basically a Windows 8 metro version of a Soundcloud-Pitchfork-Flipboard-Twitter mashup. Lots of sliding boxes, feature-rich, promise of discovery, but ultimately hard to use. A visual designer’s dream: clean lines, big pictures, responsive design that works OK on tablet and desktop alike. It should be an interaction designer’s nightmare: lack of priority and clear next steps, inconsistent use of controls (that infinity-connect button works in many different ways). But its understandable why they had so much trouble, it’s trying to do 10 things and look like a sexy beast. Why would you want to use MySpace? It seems for every use case, there is a better, purpose-built solution. Want to connect with DJs, producers, and selectors? Soundcloud. Looking for the hottest music right now (mostly free from industry hype): Hype Machine. Want to listen to custom radio? Pandora, Spotify, or Grooveshark. Looking for a great music magazine? Pitchfork. In the end, it does an B+ job of most of the 10 things its trying to do (discovery, music player, social, mixes, sharing, promoting, trending, library, video playing, personal profile) – and many people will enjoy fiddling with it while listening to music.”
– Simon Plashkes, co-founder, Art Battle
“I don’t think that the re-launch will necessarily result in a resurgence in popularity for MySpace. I think many previous users of MySpace won’t return just because of a rebrand, they have lost trust in the site and name. It’s sad to see but I don’t believe it can compete with the likes of Facebook, Soundcloud, etc.”
– Louis Buick, Producer/DJ
“I previously had an artist MySpace page set up for when I used to make music but have not signed into it for over a year. When first checking out the new MySpace, it prompted me to create a personal profile, which caused a bit of confusion as to why I wasn’t being logged into my artist account. I have designed interfaces for web and applications for years and my first impression of the new interface was that MySpace is obviously sticking to what it does best: music. The design features the embedded music streaming functionality similar to sites such as Grooveshark and Soundcloud. Absent from the new profile are the weakest components of the old MySpace that competitor Facebook does much better: top friends, cluttered comments walls and drawn out personal biographies (the new bio allows for a maximum of 150 characters). You can create and compile your own playlists and mixes, which will please all the music aficionados and wannabe DJs who the new MySpace will undoubtedly appeal to the most. In other words, if your old MySpace friends have bad taste in music, it’s time to get new friends.”
– Melissa Bathory, graphic/web designer and E-Learning Producer in Learning & Development at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts in Toronto.
“Looking at the new MySpace, I see potential for music artists based on what it represented back in the day for musicians. With Justin Timberlake at the helm, this could mark a new era for the original cool social media source. The only issue I find with this statement is, until you hit me up with the official re-launch date being Monday, I had no idea. To me this says a lot in terms of where it will stand in the social media universe. For someone who watches a lot of news, there wasn’t much hoopla. I took a look at the new site and it looks interesting, but if people don’t use it then it doesn’t really matter if it’s the greatest layout ever created. It’s all about traffic and where the easiest place to connect with people is. Twitter and Facebook have that locked down and only time will tell if the patterns change with society. It has a stamp on it in terms of its out-of-fad history; people have too many options, so people are starting to just stick with what they know. It will be interesting how the trend will evolve as 2013 carries on… anything is possible if it’s run properly.”
– Courtney James, filmmaker, The Global Groove Network
“If they keep it simple, useable and without any bad press about security issues, or the debate about terms and conditions like with Facebook in Germany, MySpace could see a resurgence in popularity and perhaps compete with other social networks like Soundcloud. But I don’t think it will gain huge popularity like Facebook. It offers people like DJs and producers a simple way to bring music to the masses, but so do other platforms. Maybe it’s only an addition to other networks like Soundcloud. It’s tough to give a forecast.”
– Lorenz Doring, Music Blogger