MySpace To Clutter Its Music Page Even More With “Exclusive Performances”

noah | December 4, 2007 9:30 am
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It’s not on the site yet, but later today, the few remaining James Blunt fans (there are some out there, right?) will be able to purchase downloadable videos of exclusive performances by the scruffy singer-songwriter from MySpace’s music section. The performances are the inaugural offering in Transmissions, a the social-networking site’s latest attempt to stay relevant connect its users to the musicians they loved. Or used to, anyway, before that “You’re Beautiful” song became inescapable.

It could be perceived as an Internet variation of the popular series “MTV Unplugged,” but with a revenue stream built in. When musicians participate in the MTV series, their work is sometimes released as albums months or years later. On MySpace, the work will be available immediately.

“If I like what I see, I can take it with me,” said Josh Brooks, vice president for programming and content of MySpace.

For years MySpace, now owned by the News Corporation, has served as a promotional platform for artists and labels, primarily through the MySpace Music portion of the Web site. Now the company wants to provide a sales component. Unlike Apple’s iTunes music store, which charges a flat rate of 99 cents a song, MySpace will let distributors set their own prices.

“We’re enabling artists to choose how they want to distribute their music,” Mr. Brooks said.

This is MySpace’s second foray into selling music after its failed dalliance with the music-sales-widget company Snocap, which is a little over a year old; Transmissions’ revenue model is also “enabling artists” to decide whether or not they want to share the money with MySpace, an option that Blunt is not pursuing. Whether or not this model will actually work depends on MySpace getting the right artists–i.e. artists with fanbases that will shell out the cash and navigate their way to the Transmission page, and not just any old artist who is trying to throw album-promotion spaghetti at any nearby wall in hopes that some of it will stick–than any other factor, to be, er, blunt. (I’m speaking in part from experience, having worked for about six months at a site that had a similar setup, and a roster of artists that was sorely lacking in the “will anyone care?” department.) No word yet on which other bands have signed up for future Transmissions, although I’m going to guess that, in keeping with company policy, Universal Music Group artists will only perform 90-second versions of their hits.

MySpace to Showcase Music and Sell Performance Videos [NYT]