MySpace is claiming that it has facilitated 500,000 downloads of Pennywise’s new album Reason to Believe, which the social-networking service is offering as a free download to users who “befriend” the music-via-SMS company Textango. More »
It may be staffed by a bunch of lunatics who make Comic Book Guy seem like a fountain of pedantic restraint, but Yahoo! users apparently prefer Wikipedia to MySpace when looking for information on their favorite artists, according to Billboard. This despite Wikipedia only having data on some tens of thousands of artists, while MySpace boasts more than three million. According to Yahoo! label relations head John Lenac, “The interest that people had to go to MySpace to find out more about their favorite band is waning in favor of going to Wikipedia…. In the last six months, it’s surpassed it.” While I’m not a Yahoo! searcher, I too have found that Wikipedia is more useful for finding out information on bands. Why? The answers lie in usability.
Because they’re the ones out there fighting for our freedom to spend the best years of our lives reordering our Top 8, America’s beleaguered troops currently stationed in Kuwait are soon to get a visit from Tom and the rest of the MySpace gang. On March 10, “Operation MySpace,” a live concert featuring the hottest stars of a couple years ago, will be broadcast around the world (no guesses as to where you can tune in) starting at 2 p.m. EST. And just how much does MySpace hate the men and women of our Armed Forces? Quite a bit, judging by this lineup.
MySpace’s long-awaited music-distribution venture with the major labels will have a few components, according to the Wall Street Journal: Users will be able to stream music, pay for MP3s, and download select songs for free, although apparently they’ll have to listen to any gratis songs on the… More »
Last month, MySpace came out with a survey of users that tried to suss out just what people between the ages of 18 and 24 were doing with their time on the slightly passe social-networking site, given that a good 45% of them said that if they had 15 minutes to spare, they’d spend it on the site instead of “watching TV, reading, talking on their mobile, or playing video games.” (Also of note: 14% “have made money on social networking sites using their commercial, creative and cultural skills.” Has anyone coined the term “social-networking Darwinism” yet?) And there was, of course, the obligatory listing of music trends: artists like Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong, Peggy Sue And The Pirates, and Conan And Mockasins, who will no doubt join Kate Nash and the Arctic Monkeys on the “we made it online” scrap heap; the terrifying new clique known as Super Super Kids, who are apparently the result of “new ravers” breeding with “new romantics”; and a smattering of musical genres, some of which don’t sound all that new and some of which sound like they spent a little too much time swinging on the flippity-flop. After the jump, some of the genres cited by the report, as well as brief descriptions that, I should note, were written by other people. (You’ll see why when you click.)
British spaz-punks The Futureheads have posted a new song to their MySpace page, and I definitely think it needs to be released from the confines of its embedded player to be properly appreciated; it’s one of those tracks that needs to be listened to repeatedly in order to get it. More »
Seeing as how MySpace popularity is still being used by some as a benchmark of future musical success–even though the site doesn’t really have a hold on the concept of what an “indie” label is–there are now companies out there that are expressly designed to inflate bands’ “played” count to new, absurd heights. (If you can’t trust a band’s MySpace play count, what is left in the world?) One of those companies is Want More PROMO?, a Florida-based outfit that claims to have “signed artists” among its ranks and that incorrectly figured hip-hop artist Sage Francis for someone who’d shell out $1,200 for 430,000 fake plays a month. The person behind Francis’ MySpace page played along with the company’s solicitations, then posted the pitch to Francis’ official site in order to tell the world about yet another dark side of social networking. Warning: Reading these solicitations will make you fear for the future of the U.S. economy and humanity.
Sebastian Bach, philosopher of our time: “…the whole ironic thing to me is I have over 80,000 “friends” on MySpace but I have not sold 80,000 records; if you’re my “friend,” could you go fuckin’ buy the motherfucker? (Laughs) Who cares if I have 80,000 “friends”?! I mean, who gives a shit! More »
Sebastian Bach, philosopher of our time: “…the whole ironic thing to me is I have over 80,000 “friends” on MySpace but I have not sold 80,000 records; if you’re my “friend,” could you go fuckin’ buy the motherfucker? (Laughs) Who cares if I have 80,000 “friends”?! I mean, who gives a shit! More »
Holy crap! Did you know that the “Al Qaeda is just as bad as the Jonas Brothers” rant by the YouTube firebrand ADiehardFOBFan got her kicked off MySpace? And she is freaking pissed off. Apparently the culprits, meganANDariel, will have their own YouTube response video coming soon! More »
