14 DAY TRIAL // MySpace as a social network has pretty much lost the race. In fact the social network's CEO is the first to admit it, though reluctantly, but says that MySpace is now focusing on an entirely different space aiming to become an entertainment hub rather than a place to connect with friends. The social network is now announcing a new venture, which brings a full catalogue of licensed music videos on the newly launched MySpace Music Videos. The most interesting part is that the videos will be embeddable through the iLike music service, which MySpace acquired earlier this year meaning that they make their way onto Facebook at some point where the iLike widget is one of the most popular in the music category.
This isn't some half-backed try to get some music videos on the social network's already existing video and music sites either. MySpace Music Videos will feature a complete searchable archive of music videos from all the major music labels as well as independent ones. The product could shape up to become the best place for music videos online, if you happen to live in the US at least, and currently there isn't any competition that could measure against it directly.
YouTube of course features licensed videos from all the major labels and it has a comprehensive catalogue but it isn't a dedicated music video site and the content is somewhat scattered throughout all the different Channels. A much better match for MySpace Music Videos is the upcoming Vevo video site, which is also dedicated to music videos. It is a joint venture between Universal Music Group and Sony Music, the two largest music labels, and should be launched by the year's end. There are some new rumors that Warner Music and EMI are in talks with Vevo but by the looks of it MySpace will be the only place to offer all of the videos from all of the labels.
Along with the new dedicated music video site MySpace is launching an Artist dashboard that provides extensive statistical data on how the users are engaging with the content from that artist. This should prove a very powerful tool – YouTube offers a similar feature – and will allow artists to have a much better overview of how their videos and music are faring with demographic and location data as well as profile views and the likes.