MySpace: A place to take on iTunes
MySpace is preparing to launch a new music Web site which it hopes will beat iTunes competition. Ashley Milne-Tyte looks into what advantages the new MySpace site might have and where their edge might be dull.
MySpace.com homepage (Nicholas Kamm/Getty Images)
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Doug Krizner: The social networking site MySpace is teaming up with three major record labels to launch a music Web site. It'll let users buy downloaded songs and listen to streaming music at no cost. Seems like the music industry has decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.
Ashley Milne-Tyte: Peter Nagel is a freshman at the University of Michigan. I asked him if he buys CDs.
Peter Nagel: Physical CDs from a store? Um, not really.
Forty-eight percent of U.S. teens didn't buy any CDs last year. Like Nagel, they download music instead.
Nagel uses iTunes, but he'd be willing to give MySpace's new music site a try.
Nagel: If you were able to get music from bands that are unsigned and labels that are, y'know, really small and local.
Otherwise, he says, MySpace won't have an advantage over iTunes.
But Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research isn't so sure. He says that while the MySpace music site will feature just the big record labels, it could make them a lot of money, because MySpace users are always sharing information.
Jeremiah Owyang: Friends can actually recommend other songs to each other in terms of a play list or a song thing on their profile player, which is a native feature to MySpace.
He says that brings a whole new dimension to music sales that a site like iTunes can't offer.
I'm Ashley Milne-Tyte for Marketplace.
