How Myspace got its groove back

With a flashy new layout and a feature better than Pandora, what's not to love?

Photo by Matt Johnston

Screenshot of Myspace.com

Over the past six years, Myspace has lost some of its users due to its lack of professionalism and lack of followers. However, I believe it is due for a comeback.

Jacob Ortega, a sophomore biology major, said the lack of professionalism weakened Myspace’s quality. Another student, freshman business major Nicole Tucker, said Myspace was boring back in the day. It was pretty boring because the blue and white layout was "bleh." Wait a minute, so is Facebook, but Facebook had better apps before the invention of the timeline.

Last year, Tim and Chris Vanderhook bought the failing website from Newscorp for $35 million, according to a press release by their company, Specific Media. I know, to a college student, that is a lot of money. However, in the business world, that is chump change.

The New Myspace

Posted by Myspace on Vimeo.

In September, Myspace released a two-minute video about a redesign to their already redone website. In the video, you can see how the look and flow of the website has been changed entirely, using a horizontal scroll system rather than a vertical scroll system (what you internet users are used to). However, the new Myspace is more known for its entertainment and music focus.

To make Myspace cool, the web site encompasses a radio system similar to that of Pandora Radio. There are two benefits, and the main reason why I use my old Myspace account, is that there are no commercials. That’s right, no more annoying commercials interrupting your music enjoyment.

Also, that annoying skip limit bugs the living daylights out of me, especially when you make a play list and get bombarded with songs you do not like. Not with Myspace Radio. It also allows you to make your own play list with all sorts of songs.

Welcome to the new Myspace.

I am not the only one with this opinion. Methodshop.com came out and said something similar to this in a review of the re-release. They also said it is possible that Myspace could be like “MTV on the Internet.” Now I do not need cable to watch all the stuff I want without watching Jersey Shore. I like it.

Despite its refocus, it is still not as widely used as before. According to statistics from SRDS.com, Myspace users have been on the decline in the past few months. After gaining a million new users in the month following its re-launch, it is starting to fall due to the lack of publicity. I think the owners, including Justin Timberlake, wanted to try to find ways to incorporate more than just music into its focus.

An interesting thing, though, is that Facebook is also seeing a decline in users in the past month according to SRDS.com. However, the page viewing time is much greater on Facebook than Myspace, according to data collected by alexa.com.

I am not trying to sound like a Myspace advertiser, because I left it just as all of you did back when Facebook became popular. However, the creative side of me likes how I can still customize my page. Plus, with something better than Pandora, how is it not cool?

By the way, I know most of you have old accounts; you can reactivate them by entering your old log in.