Myspace – A History & A Future (includes leaked internal slides)

Now i’ll admit from the start that I have a guilty love of Myspace. It was the first social network that I regularly used and it brings back memories of excitedly uploading the latest recordings from my band to their music player to share with the world. After all, back in 2006 bands were filled with a fresh hope! No longer did they have to send out crate loads of demo CD’s to unresponsive record labels, with this new thing called myspace all you had to do was send a message to whichever label you wanted, with a link to your Myspace page and BAM… you’d *probably* get signed there and then. It worked for the Arctic Monkeys and Calvin Harris didn’t it, with the internet suddenly touted as the “home of a new music revolution”

It wasn’t just bands, people - REAL PEOPLE – were using it too. You could suddenly become friends with all of your, well, friends and ‘browse’ the network for like minded (helped if they had a cute photo) people to make new friends.

Then it all went wrong. This happy place for friends became a spam riddled, ad cluttered, clunky heap of a waste of server space. Everyone left for pastures new AKA Facebook leaving the ruinous remains of Myspace to spambot rule.

In 2004-5 Myspace was a place where the ‘kids’ could go hang out with their new friend Tom, away from the eyes of their parents as something that they could claim as their own. Of course any such organisation holding as much personal data as Myspace suddenly did will catch the eyes of ‘the man’. That man was Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp who purchased it for £332 million.

Myspace Timeline

Myspace reached its user peak in 2008 before the behemoth that is Facebook overtook it. So began the fall of a giant with Jack (Mark Zuckerberg) chopping the beanstalk hardest until in 2011 Specific Media picked up the lifeless form that was Myspace, launching a plan to recusitate it.

And here is that plan, apparently leaked from a deck for internal use only (I don’t buy that).

In summary:

• Specific Media hope to position Myspace as “the  number one online community music destination and to “feed the energy of youth culture everywhere”. They name their ‘bullseye’ taget audience as male and females, 21 years old. This seems something of a contradiction to me? A 21 year old is on the verge of not really being considered a youth…surely it would be better to target the 14+ age group?
• They intend to take revenue from “ad-supported music video and audio streaming” a la Spotify.
• They admit that they failed to build a well functioning social product.
• They blame the decline in users on a combination of Facebook and “rumours of impending Myspace sale” in 2010.
• They think Justin Timberlake’s involvement/investment will give them credibility…

Here’s the original deck:

Myspace pitch deck

View more presentations from lizgannesATD

You can read more on AllThingsD where I first read about it

E4 Hijacks BBCThree, Channel 5, ITV2 and Sky Facebook Pages!

Imagine you’re waiting on hold for ITV customer services to pickup. Suddenly someone starts talking to to you but they’re not from ITV, they’re from E4! Now imagine the customer service channel is Facebook and that’s exactly what’s happened….

E4 have been posting on the Facebook walls of ITV2, Sky and Channel 5 and BBC3, answering the other broadcaster’s fan’s questions and generally muscling in on territory that, technically isn’t really theirs!

It seems there’s no sabotage or malicious intent, more doing it because they can and frankly, why not?! As E4 themselves say in a comment on BBC3′s page “we’re just being helpful. It’s really that simple” .

ITV3 somewhat nervously  replied to E4′s comments with “Hi E4, great to see you are a fan of Lee Nelson’s. Enjoy the show tonight and keep watching BBC Three!”

 

I notice they didn’t do it to BBC or ITV’s main channels…however top mark’s E4 PR dept!

New Facebook Changes – A Laymans Summary

More as a way to summarise the updates for myself, here is a review of the changes announced by team Zuckerburg yesterday. There appear to be two sides to the changes – on the one hand we have the changes that ‘Joe Blogs Facebook user’ will care about and on the other, the new Open Graph API that (Facebook hope) will have developers drooling over and will deliver “real time serendipity”.

Facebook themselves split the changes in to three; Your Cover, Your Stories & Your Apps.

Your Cover – Is the header to the new ‘Timeline’ profile that features a main, banner like photo that Facebook say should ‘represent you best’.

 Underneath your header there will now be an area all about YOU called ‘Your Stories’. This section of a users Timeline will detail photos, posts, videos and anything else that may tell people about who you are, what you do and what you’re about.

‘Your Apps’ will be at the lower end of your Timeline. This is the part that Facebook were perhaps the most excited about. Basically Facebook will now be partnering with any service that they might be able to connect with Facebook allowing your Timeline you be an interest aggregator. Users can add the Spotify app for example which will allow your Facebook friends to see which tracks you have listened to.

A whole host of new apps will be introduced including ones from news sources like The Guardian and The Independent, online video and TV streaming  through Netflix or Hulu and other music apps such as Mixcloud and Soundcloud.

Open Graph

Developers will now be able to tap in to Facebook in ways that weren’t possible before using the updated Open Graph API. As Facebook say on this new way of working “The opportunities are endless, such as building an app for runners to share their routes and achievements, photographers to feature the photos they take, and music lovers to share their playlists and top albums with friends. Develop Open Graph apps that will make Timeline the personal, expressive page we believe it can be.”

The new developer options will be based around what Facebook call a Graph Rank which will give prominence in news feeds to apps that users find engaging. New app analytics will allow developers to monitor their apps activity and so optimise apps for an increased Graph Rank.

Conclusion:

I don’t think all these changes amount to the world changing, redefinition of social networking that sites such as Mashable would have had us believe in the pre-launch hype.

Most people use Facebook as either a simple communication tool, whether through comments, FB messages or FB chat. They like to look at other folks photos or if they have a bit of time to spare, flick down through the most recent status updates. But how often does one visit another user’s profile page? Are you really bothered about going to someone else’s ‘Timeline’ to find out all about them? Or they use it to have a nosey at other user’s pictures…

Facebook is basing its latest direction on the assumption that users will become content creaters. It’s going to take a long time to get your timeline looking good. You;re going to have to choose which photo’s best portray you (or how you’d like to be perceived). You need to opt in to each of the apps you want to interact with and feed your profile with regular ‘stories’ about what you’re doing.

Maybe this is exactly what people have been waiting for…however I fear it might lead to a graveyard of features and apps and half completed Timelines. We’ll see. Once i’ve been able to have a proper play with it then the new Facebook’s usefulness may become clearer.

I think the top two comments on Facebook’s own blog sum up the divide in opinion perfectly…

Looks like the comment ‘the world changes, get used to it’ has proved the most popular with Facebookers.

Here’s a video that Robert Scoble took from the front row of the Faceboook F8 presentation

Facebook Friends Lists vs Google Circles

Obviously Facebook friends lists are, like, such OLD news having been announced last week. It’s only today however that i’ve been able to play around with it. Facebook friends is essentially a security feature allowing you to organise your friends in to different categories ‘work’, ‘school’, ‘family’ and ‘city’. For these, Facebook can automatically segment based on data already available in its system (if you’ve input that data)….IT KNOWS WHERE YOU LIVE, where you went/go to school/work and who your relations are.

There is also the option to manually sort your friends in to a ‘close friends list’ and an ‘acquaintances list’. See below:

And then there is Goole Circles. Does anyone use this any more? The thing with Google Circles is it’s probably only used by a very specific group of your friends or colleagues anyway. Or else you just follow the same people you do on Twitter? Google get kudos for coming up with the idea before Facebook, however it’s Facebook that has the user base to actually make the segmentation useful.

Here’s a helpful video by google to explain Google Circles:

Twitter – The End Of Rhetorical Tweeting?

This morning I got to thinking…there was a time when Twitter users would air their frustrations on Twitter about brands or organisations that had really hacked them off. This was the age of rhetoric, with those furious outbursts never requiring or expecting a response, merely providing a theraputic channel to vent their thoughts and feeling (unless the tweeter specifically @mentioned said brand). At some point acouple of years ago, brands realised that there was some value in having a ‘conversation’ with customers. Compare The Market realised that ‘people buy people’ rather than brands so introduced a cheeky little meerkat fellow to talk to people on Twitter to make them feel like they were dealing with a personality rather than an online financial data aggregator. This was very successful, but still revolved around a conversation instigated and promoted by the brand.

Come 2010, ‘listening tools’ were becoming a standard part of many larger company’s communication/marketing strategies. If a brand was going to assign budget to a ‘social media campaign’ (washes mouth out) post economic crisis, then it needed to know what internet users were saying about them, their peripheral interests (e.g. Orange mobile customers liking to go to the cinema on a Wednesday) and where these conversations were happening. That was last year…

With 2012 in the cross hairs, users of Twitter, may now tweet a little less rhetorically. We don’t yet expect, however we are not surprised to have, each of our tweets monitored by brands.  With all this self serving ’listening’ going on there is an increased sense by consumers that we expect an answer to that frustrated tweet or flippant remark.

 Sainsburys are very good at it – if you mention them on Twitter and it’s something they can sort out then there’s a good chance that they’ll tweet you whether you @mentioned them or not. All of the social media monitoring software providers are extremely good at hearing you mention them on Twitter (as you’d expect them to be. If I mention R a d i a n 6 or B r a n d w a t c h then I always put spaces between the letters to decrease the chances of them ‘hearing’ me (although most have a letter/word proximity tool). Yes i’m a paranoid weirdo but just because i’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not all out to tweet me. FYI, I currently use Brandwatch and it’s pretty good. Visible Technologies, i’ve never used but have heard good things about and same with PeopleBrowser.

So the point really of this post is that, if only subconsciously, we are moving in to an era where consumers know that brands are listening, which leads to the expectation that they should be responding. If they listen but don’t respond then they’re just ignoring you right? If you want to read an arguement for not responding to every customer’s social media demand, read Ilana Fox’s NMA piece.

Finally, I asked the following question on Twitter:

 …and below are the responses I received which were varied and very interesting:

A Guide To Digital For Bands & Artists

I work in digital but I am also in a band called Rapids! This is a happy occurance as in this day and age digital marketing is crucial for any band, whether just starting out or playing Wembly Stadium. Now, my band isn’t the most successful, we haven’t played Wembly but we have passed a few important benchmarks. We have for example; played a live session on BBC 6 Music, been played on BBC Radio 1, soundtracked the goals on Soccer AM, toured the UK, been signed to a record label and are about to release our second single and EP!

At no point is this meant to be a “look how good we are” type of post; because you’ve probably never heard of Rapids!…this is purely to help bands who might not have someone who works in digital as their guitarist!

So, without further ado:

Firstly, make sure you have a good set of songs that have been recorded to a reasonable standard. It’s a sad state of affairs, but most people don’t have £100 headphones ora  5.1 professional stereo set up to listen to your music. A lot of people that hear your music will be listening through their generic mp3 player white headphones, or a laptop/PC speaker. Not everyone, but a lot of people. Your music will be the constant factor when dealing with many different people and platform and if it’s not a) good and b) listenable you’ll find it a real struggle. You can record 5 songs in a weekend at a studio for as little as £100 (what we did the first time). A little bit of an investment but well worth it when you consider the next point… 

Once you have these songs recorded you need to make them as widely available for listening as possible, so, at the very least, you need to have a presence on:

- Facebook

 Set up an artist page and make sure you create a custom, friendly URL . This will help people remember where your page is and leave less margin for error when it comes to linking to your page. Then make sure you upload your songs to the Facebook music player and add this as a tab. It sounds obvious but there are loads of bands that set up pages, try and get loads of ‘fans’ but either forget, or don’t realise that they can add their music. 

Rapids Facebook is www.facebook.com/listentorapids for example.

- Last.fm

If you have enough fans then someone else may have set up a Last.fm page for you. Otherwise go to Last.fm, set up an account and add your music. The way Last.fm works is that it will recommend your music to other peolpe based on similar tastes/genres so make sure you tag your tunes correctly. Last.fm is a good way to get your music heard by fans of similar sounding artists. I’m not sure of the exact logistics but you seem to stand a better chance of being played alongside the bigger bands if you’ve had more plays yourself. In fact, Last.fm admin will ‘tag’ your band once you pass 1000 plays…2000 plays etc tc. You can get people to listen to your Last.fm by either spamming other users, making sure you link to your Last.fm page from your website and by using Last.fm’s paid for plays. These allow you to pay to have your music played alongside listeners of bigger bands, temporarily boosting the number of play you recieve. However, unless you have a large budget this will only be a short term boost.

- Myspace

The aging giant Myspace is becoming less and less relevant with every month that passes. However Myspace is a double sided coin as people will in the same breath, dis them and speculate that Myspace is dead and follow this by asking ‘how many Myspace plays have you had by the way?’! So put your music on Myspace and make sure you have a profile that is in keeping with your image. If you do get press mentions or reviews etc they will still invariably add a link to your Myspace so worth keeping this spam riddled dinosaur updated!

- Bandcamp

With Bandcamp you can upload your music and then allow fans to either stream or purchase it. The beauty of Bandcamp is you can also embed your music play on on platforms such as a website…which you should do…

Website

Get yourself a website and populate it with loads of content (ours isn’t the best example as we always forget to update it!). Embed your music using Bandcamp, integrate a blog, add photos and video. It all helps add substance to your band ‘product’ and will also increase your band’s visibility in the search engines. Make sure all the meta data is correct and plenty of keywords are included. Your website should include links to all of your other web presences (Facebook etc), and it will also be the destination for social network users to find out more/buy music…

To actually make a website you can a) Pay someone b) ask someone nicely that you might know to do it for free c) Use a blogging platform like WordPress or Tumblr as a website. These are free and pretty user friendly for novices like you and me.

Twitter

- Set yourself up a Twitter account for godsake. It’s not scary or boring if used correctly. Follow relevant people, fans of similar bands, key influencers for your genre of music, journalists etc etc. Join conversations, tweet about interesting stuff and link your Facebook to your Twitter. Also link your Twitter to your Myspace.

Soundcloud

- Is being used more and more. It allows you to again, create an account and upload your music. Like Bandcamp, users/fans can then either stream or download your music. Many reviewers/labels/promoters will have ‘dropboxes’ that allow you to ‘drop’ your music directly in to their Soundcloud account for them to listen. With Soundcloud each song or groups of songs can be turned in to an embeddable music player. You may well get bloggers, websites etc asking for a Soundcloud embed code.

Big Cartel

-Selling music is only one part of the great enterprise that is music. Once you get going you might also begin to create merchandise such as t-shirts, posters, badges or if you’re Radiohead, newspapers. Big Cartel allows you to sell your physical CD’s, vinyls, tee’s and other merchandise through your own online shop.

3) Email

Yes its as old as the internet itself but still relevant. Social media’s all well and good but it’s incredibley fickle and transient. With email it’s simple – register with an email client, something like MailChimp is good and free up to a certain point. Build a subscriber list by including an email subscribe form everywhere you can on your various digital platforms. Ask your Facebook/Twitter fans to subscribe too. Take a mailing list signup form to every gig you play and make sure as many people as possible give you their email address. Then, when you have something important to say you have a ready made list of people ready to receive your message!

Content

- EVERYTHING, absolutely everything depends on content. Your music is content, the text on your website is content, videos of gigs are content. Take photos of stuff you do, record your practice session on Soundcloud using their iPhone app and share with your Facebook fans. You won’t be releasing new songs every day so a variety of interesting content is key to building and retaining fans.  

Wikipedia

- A bit of a tricky one as Wikipedia is tightly marshalled by a crack team of mostly self appointed moderators and administrators. You can’t state anything but the bare facts but it’s worth doing. If you’re ever played by the BBC then they’ll draw in your ‘about’ section from Wikipedia (they also use a service called Musicbrainz which you’ll need to register with). Plus Wikipedia results come up fairly high in the search engine results page.

You can also get lots of great advice from many other blogs. One of the most useful though, is the Sentric Music blog. They do regular posts to help bands so you should definitely check them out too – plus they got us our first PRS payment! Also follow them on Twitter @SentricMusic

There’s probably loads i’ve missed too so if anyone has any other suggestions then definitely comment below…

10 Social Media Usage Stats (June 2011)

1. Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30-years-old
2. In 10 years over 40% of the Fortune 500 will no longer be here
3. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
4. Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.
5. 1 in 5 couples meet online; 3 in 5 gay couples meet online
6. 1 in 5 divorces are blamed on Facebook
7. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
8. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
9. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest and 2x the size of the U.S. population
10. 80% of companies use social media for recruitment; % of these using LinkedIn 95%

Taken from a post on the ever interesting Socialnomics via We Are Social!