It’s been a bad year so far for the site that everyone fell in love with when Facebook and Twitter were still in diapers. In the first half of 2010, MySpace has taken one nosedive after another and fans are leaving in droves. Back in March, Metal Insider reported how the former social network heavyweight was losing fans to YouTube and other sites, resulting in their tanking viewership and thus their floundering advertising potential. How floundering you may ask? The site’s advertising partnership with Google expires soon, and the search engine will be parting ways with the company (with Google taking the contract that in 2006 was worth $900,000,000 elsewhere.) And on top of that, reports are showing that MySpace Music UK has had 50% less viewership in the first half of 2010, and we can’t assume the US site is doing much better.
So what is MySpace planning to do? Well, sources claim the site has come up with a new way of making up for lost ground- creating a sponsorship model for MySpace music. You heard right, rather than fix the issues that fans have been complaining about for years such as layout and an overabundance of spam, MySpace is opting instead to charge people for the privilege of using their music site. What makes MySpace think that they can even entertain such a thought during a time when their key target demographic expects everything for free? That’s a good question that we’re stumped on as well.
The only thing that has been keeping MySpace alive for the last few years has been their music, and at this point in their downward spiral, it’s sad to think an idea like this would stand a chance. It’s tricky creating a subscription site that could feasibly work, because for every Pandora, there are plenty of Spiral Frog’s. Ever since hearing MySpace’s new tactic, we’ve been trying to think of ways that the company could pull itself out and at least break even, but we came up empty handed. Maybe David Fincher could try making a movie about them next?
