A year ago Justin Timberlake hoovered up some venture capital to give Myspace.com a shot at survival. Now he’s trying to make good on his investment in yesterday’s favorite proto-facebook by relaunching with a fresh new look and a committed focus on the tastemakers among us, namely musicians and other varieties of budding artist.
Here’s the promo video showcasing the slick new stuff:
Personally, I’m all for it. My business is to help you navigate the latest and greatest trends in technology, so every new (or re-vamped) service on the web equals new opportunities for all of us.
But I wonder if it’s going to work.
Myspace has lost a lot of ground to other sites over the last few years. Most up-and-coming musicians have chosen to utilize Bandcamp or SoundCloud, and we’ve all moved our sharing and chatting over to Facebook and Twitter. That’s a lot of negative momentum to overcome.
Myspace is trying to regain its cool, and this is one problem that money can’t mend.
The song that accompanies the video is “Heartbeat” by JJAMZ. It’s a nice track, all about second chances and being “not ashamed to want you back.” As the songs says, you “can’t pretend that nothing’s changed (but) my heartbeat is still going strong.” Every line works as a Myspace metaphor. While it’s nice to think that this “indie-pop” group just happened to find some synergy with the new promotion — plucked from obscurity to internet fame — the truth is that JJAMZ is the ultimate band of insiders. They’re a supergroup of established players pretending to be something new.
I’d say Mr. Timberlake found the perfect soundtrack for his new venture.
But still, I’m optimistic. I created a MySpace page years ago to test the design procedures before starting some client projects, and I’d love to have the opportunity to do some great work on a more advanced platform. It would be good for everyone if this investment showed a return. If there’s one thing JT knows, it’s how to bring a little SexyBack.
