While this isn’t completely new news, it may be news to some since MySpace has basically crawled into a hole to die with the creation of Facebook. Former Mickey Mouse club member turned 90’s boy band icon turned actor Justin Timberlake took ownership of MySpace back in June.
MySpace is hoping that Timberlake’s celebrity status and recent success in, well, basically every business venture he’s dipped his toes into, will create hope for the site.
Perhaps the equation of former king of social media + former king of boy bands will equate to the comeback of the century.
Timberlake and new owner Specific Media, promised updates to advisers by Advertising Week which took place the first week of October. Despite being comfortable in the spotlight, Timberlake only spoke for three minutes while Specific Media CEO Tim Vanderhook spoke for ten minutes about returning MySpace to its original roots.
Specific has been telling marketers that the new MySpace’s vision is “to become the #1 online community music destination” and that its mission is “to feed the energy of youth culture everywhere.”
I do recall being loyal to MySpace for awhile before converting to Facebook because of the music playlist feature. I thought it was cooler to be able to listen to music on people’s pages than for everyone to have the same Facebook page. But then I grew up and stopped caring about what picture was to be used for my background.
It is kind of ironic that Justin Timberlake was chosen to be the mastermind behind converting MySpace into the new “music destination” since he hasn’t released any personal new music since 2006. He has collaborated on other artists’ songs since then, but has yet to return to his solo career.
Perhaps his frequent collaborations in the music industry with performing, producing and writing made him the best candidate. Not only is he in the prime of his life, but he’s willing to take the risks even if everyone else has forgotten why MySpace was so cool.
But was all the money that was spent at their Advertising Week party has excited investors, users, and advertisers enough to establish them as ‘the Hulu of music’?
It will be interesting to see if any more updates come in regards to the re-birth of MySpace. Who knows? This may be Timberlake’s first “failure” or it could be his most unique and perhaps defining business venture success
