Rivals try to sing along with MySpace

Social-networking site MySpace's growing role as a powerful force in the music business is sparking followers, which are offering broader features for bands and music fans in hopes of attracting the giant's audience.

On Monday, relative newcomer TagWorld launched its own music ambitions with the support of a core group of popular indie rock groups, including The Shins and Death Cab For Cutie. Like MySpace, it's offering a home for bands to post songs and connect directly to fans, but TagWorld is hoping that its design attracts viewers more specifically interested in exploring and listening to music.

"We don't think MySpace is the finish line," TagWorld founder Evan Rifkin said. "We think that's just the beginning of social networking, and of music online."

It might seem a little late in the game to be taking on MySpace in territory to which it's established an unparalleled claim. The social-networking giant is one of the few brands online, Google and Flickr being two others, whose name has become virtually synonymous with its function.

But even MySpace itself stole the social-networking crown from the space's leader, Friendster, to become a service viewed as an indispensable stop for record labels seeking to promote a new band.

Indeed, the mix of community and music is proving to be an extraordinarily fruitful one, as the Web moves through its second boom era.

Friendster itself struck a deal with peer-to-peer multimedia-sharing service Grouper Networks several months ago, aiming to add music and video to its portfolio. Music subscription services such as Napster, Yahoo and RealNetworks' Rhapsody all tout community and song-sharing features as a selling point.

TagWorld itself feels much like an amped-up MySpace, with a simple drag-and-drop page design interface aimed at the most tech-phobic users. Its music site lets bands post as many songs as they want on their home pages. It also lets listeners create playlists for themselves by selecting songs from different bands' pages.

For now, the new site has launched its services with a few marquee bands, and that might be enough to generate interest from others. For what it's worth, though, most of the bands launching on TagWorld on Monday still have their MySpace pages open for business.

[jhutcheson]

tagworld link goes to myspace... how amusing.

yeah.. so much for a free link and publicity. instead a link to your competition. how ironic.

[dmehus]

It's fixed

It appears the error is fixed so I'll do the honours of the News.com copy editors and thank you for the nice catch! Good stuff. :)

Ciao,
Doug

[random_foo]

Wait until it moves into video, too...

There already exist video sites ( see: http://www.vobbo.com/ ) that follow the social networking model and allow amateurs to upload their own videos. The amateur tv show / movie is about to pick up where amateur audio podcasting left off...

[kmoghim]

supersociety.com is pretty damn good...

it lets you create a custom profile with video and music playlists using the designer,basically you dont need to know any html.

below is the list of some of their feature listed on the site:

*Send picture text messages to your friends? cell phones for FREE

*Upload unlimitted number of pictures to your Photo Albums and choose who to share them with

*Categorize your network of friends into groups with different profile privileges

[HottieBoddie]

I just joined SuperSociety! Wow!

Wow, SuperSociety.com blows away Tagworld and MySpace... I just joined and they allow you to have an unlimited number of music videos for the playlist, a very simple to use profile designer, and even some photo Text messaging capabilities!

Myspace, who?

MULTIPLY!!!

Multiply is the best online community around! It beats My Space or any rival hands down. You have unlimeted storage for photos, video, music and more. Best blog system around with easy photo & poll attachments, great review system & the best contact management system around, Tons of groups to join or create your own, custom web pages (nicest looking around) and tons of poeple! FREE or Premium memberships available!

Multiply Link

Ooops forgot the link http://multiply.com/info/about

And I must say I'm shocked they were not mentioned in that article???

[ryanmore2006]

supersociety interesting

supersociety looks pretty original and i like the whole concept of the themes... but whats up with multiply.com i signed up and i cant see any users/profiles in there, have they launched the site yet?
who is the backer of supersociety, does anyone know?