myspace

Digital music suffering from entrepreneur drain

PASADENA, Calif.-Of all the losses suffered by the music industry, one of the biggest may be the fact that nearly all of the investors that once were building digital music services have moved on.

"There are not a lot of entrepreneurs involved in this space," said David Pakman, a music industry veteran and now venture capitalist at Venrock Associates.

By Pakman's count, there have been 109 venture-backed digital music start-ups. Fewer than five, though, produced a substantial return, he said.

"Investors lost a lot of money in this space," he said, speaking on a … Read more

Will 'MySpace Mail' be a tool for bands?

So, according to PaidContent, MySpace is about to upgrade its messaging service to full-out Web mail: so that instead of only being able to communicate with other MySpace members, users will have an @myspace.com e-mail address. This will start rolling out on Thursday, apparently, with the new service available to all MySpace members by the end of the year.

This seems a little odd at first, considering we recently heard that the troubled MySpace was more or less giving up on trying to compete with Facebook, and was attempting to rebrand as an "entertainment portal." Launching a … Read more

MySpace Music: It's all about the data

NEW YORK--"The music business discovered data only to show how bad it was getting," MySpace Music President Courtney Holt said in a talk on Tuesday morning. "The first time I was asked to get data when I was working at Universal (Music Group) was, 'How many songs are being stolen?'"

Holt was speaking at an event called the New Music Seminar, a day-long conference geared toward the artist side of the record business. The angle of the event was dealing with a paradox that has emerged in the past decade: the Internet has launched so … Read more

The 404 Weekend Throwback: Episode 191, 05/16/08

Now you can get your weekend 404 fix with throwback episodes coming atcha every Saturday! We're always open to suggestions on which episodes you guys want to hear, so hit us up at th404(at)cnet[dot]com and let us know your favorites.

First up, check out this episode from wayyy back in May 2008: it's the first official appearance of yours truly, Justin Yu, as the OFFICIAL HOST of the show! Before you judge me though, take note that I'm still learning the ropes and exactly what I can, and more importantly, CAN'T say … Read more

MMPORGs, microtransactions, and user experience

Microtransactions within online games and social networks offer one possible way to place a value on services while enhancing the experience for users. In addition to online games like Maple Story, virtual goods are launching all over social-networking sites, including Thursday's launch of PlaySpan's marketplace on Facebook and MySpace.

Funding for virtual worlds has grown dramatically over the last year and companies need to find sustainable revenue models. Transactions of virtual goods allow for new cash flow into both subscription and nonsubscription sites.

But some users don't like the idea that you can simply buy something to affect the game in your favor. Accordingly, games need to be very clear about the purchased goods unfold into the game.

The team at Champions Online have outlined how microtransactions will surface in the game in their State of the Game blog post. … Read more

Report: MySpace to push deeper into entertainment

The waning prospects of MySpace, once the dominate social network, are pushing parent company News Corp. to make some startling moves.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp., said he plans to reshape MySpace into an "entertainment portal."

The Journal reported that MySpace will enable the site's users, the number of which is quickly shrinking, to access entertainment and related information. Murdoch, however, didn't offer the paper any details about what this new entertainment focus would include.

The statements, made at the Allen & Company Conference in Sun Valley, … Read more

Give your fave bands a shout-out with SuperFan

I've been checking out a new social-networking site called SuperFan, and I think it could eventually become an interesting resource for music fans. But only if they make it easier to post and share content about favorite bands.

If you've used Facebook, MySpace, Imeem, or any of the other countless social-networking sites out there, the drill will be familiar: enter your information to create a profile (here's mine), invite your friends, then engage in various activities like updating your status and uploading video and photos.

The key difference is that SuperFan is organized around the stuff you … Read more

Facebook, MySpace: A race/class divide?

Speeches, like plays, are sometimes more interesting to read rather than see live.

So I have spent some time staring at the words of a speech recently given by Danah Boyd, from the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society, titled "The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online."

In the speech, given to the Personal Democracy Forum, Boyd picked up utopian views of technology, pinned them against a wall and asked them for a little more than their name and rank.

"For decades," she said, "we've assumed that inequality in relation to technology has everything … Read more

Report: Guilty verdict overturned in MySpace suicide case

Lori Drew, the woman convicted of using a hoax MySpace profile to harass a teenage girl to the point of suicide, was acquitted by a Los Angeles judge on Thursday, Wired reported.

Judge George Wu overturned Drew's guilty verdict, which was issued in November, saying that if Drew had been convicted of a felony in the case, she would already have been sentenced. But because she was convicted of three misdemeanors--a significantly lighter offense than prosecutors originally sought--the constitutionality of the guilty verdict was less clear.

Drew, a Missouri resident, had been convicted of three misdemeanor counts of "… Read more

Court: MySpace not liable for offline assaults

Social-networking sites and other Web services can't be held liable in a sexual assault on a minor that stemmed from a meeting online, according to a ruling in a California appeals court that consolidated a number of complaints against MySpace on behalf of teenage girls and their parents.

Reuters reported late on Wednesday that the Second District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles cited the Communications Decency Act in coming to the conclusion. Claiming negligence and product liability, the plaintiffs had alleged that MySpace had failed to put in place age verification software or to keep profiles on a &… Read more