Myspace
Myspace is a pioneering social networking site launched in August 2003 by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, initially designed to compete with platforms like Friendster. It allowed users to create customizable profile pages, upload photos and videos, and connect with friends, which contributed to its rapid growth, reaching over 22 million members by 2005. The site became particularly popular as a platform for musicians to share their work and for teenagers to socialize, though it also faced challenges related to safety and legal issues, including lawsuits concerning copyright infringement and the presence of sexual predators. By 2008, Myspace’s user base began to decline as Facebook gained prominence, and the site underwent several ownership changes, ultimately being purchased by Specific Media Group in 2011 for a fraction of its original value. A relaunch in 2013 shifted the focus away from social networking to music and entertainment, featuring a large library of tracks. Despite efforts to revitalize the brand, a significant data loss incident in 2019 further impacted its reputation. In recent years, Myspace has inspired new platforms like SpaceHey, which pays homage to its customizable and community-driven roots while promoting user privacy and safety.
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Myspace
Myspace was one of the most innovative and lucrative websites of the first decade of the twenty-first century, and the first social networking site to gain widespread popularity. By the end of the decade, however, its reputation was in decline, its popularity had been surpassed by Facebook and other social media platforms, and it became known mostly as a music and entertainment site.
Myspace (originally styled "MySpace") was launched by American internet entrepreneurs Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson in August 2003. Initially designed to compete with Friendster and other social networking sites, it offered profile pages that could be individually customized, the ability to upload photos and videos, and, most importantly, an opportunity for members to socialize with friends and other like-minded people, all paid for with advertising revenues. What set it apart from the other social networks was its openness. Members could “friend” any other member, and, if desired, could even fake their own identification. By June 2004, Myspace was claiming one million unique visitors each month, and by July 2005, the site had more than twenty-two million members. That same month, media conglomerate News Corporation bought out Myspace’s parent company, Intermix Media (formerly eUniverse Inc.), for $580 million.
Much of the site’s success came from a business decision to turn Myspace into a music site where established musicians could promote their recordings and fans could “friend” the musicians. At the time, Myspace had become known as the world’s largest online hangout for teenagers, where they could share music, meet potential dates, and chat. It also became known as a platform used by many sexual predators. In 2009, Myspace admitted they had blocked ninety thousand sex offenders during 2007 and 2008. Lawsuits brought by the families of victimized minors, as well as a 2006 lawsuit brought by Universal Music Group over copyright infringement, and various other lawsuits began to taint the site’s reputation.
While Myspace fought back, a formidable competitor, Facebook, was beginning to edge ahead, and surpassed Myspace in number of users in June 2008. In 2009, DeWolfe stepped down as the website’s CEO, and Myspace went on to lay off the majority of its employees by 2011. As the decade came to a close, the future of Myspace was uncertain, particularly with the increased popularity of additional media-sharing sites such as YouTube and other social media platforms such as Twitter; however, it appeared to be focused on music and entertainment. In 2011, News Corporation sold Myspace at a significant loss; the advertising firm Specific Media Group bought out the social networking site for $35 million. In the sale and in their plans to relaunch the site, Specific Media partnered with pop star Justin Timberlake, who was involved in creating and promoting the site's redesign.
The revamped Myspace debuted in 2013, no longer focused on social networking between users, but instead emphasizing music, recording artists, and other forms of entertainment, including articles and videos, and new ways for artists and fans to connect with one another. The new site featured an embedded music player at the bottom of the page with access to fifty-three million tracks—billed by the company as the web's largest music streaming library at that time. Specific Media's parent company Interactive Media Holdings became known as Viant Technologies in 2015. In February 2016, the publishing and media company Time Inc., which owns Time, Sport Illustrated, and Fortune magazines, purchased Viant Technology for a reported $87 million.
Three years later, the site's credibility suffered a blow when it was revealed that, during a server migration process, photo, video, and audio files from the first twelve years of the site's existence had been lost. An estimated 50 million songs by 14 million artists were lost during the migration, which upset many users who used the site as an archive for old music and posts.
While Myspace remained focused on music into the early 2020s, its original layout and social media functions helped inspire the creation of SpaceHey, a social networking site founded in 2020 by German teenager Anton Röhm, also known as An. With its simple web design, highly customizable user pages, and instant messaging capabilities, SpaceHey incorporated many features that made Myspace popular with users in the early and late 2000s. It also earned praise for its privacy features and Röhm's willingness to ban users who engaged in hate speech or harassment. As of February 2022, over 400,000 people had created profiles on SpaceHey.
Impact
As the first social networking site to host millions of people with billions of hits worldwide each day, Myspace set the bar for future business collaborations and innovation. It built an unprecedented community of established and amateur musicians, many of whom were given a boost through Myspace Records or special concerts. After several high-profile incidents involving sexual predators, Myspace supported the passage of the Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2007, which requires sex offenders to register their email addresses and instant-messaging aliases with the sex offender registries. The revamped, music-oriented Myspace then forged numerous brand partnerships and promised to remain an enduring web presence, if in a slightly different space than the one in which it started out.
Bibliography
Angwin, Julia. Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America. Random, 2009.
Barr, Jeremy. "SEC Filing Gives Clues to Price Time Inc. Paid for MySpace Parent Viant." AdvertisingAge, 9 May 2016, adage.com/article/media/time-s-purchase-price-myspace-parent-87-million/303898. Accessed 22 May 2024.
Glazer, Eliot. "Assessing Second-Tier Social-Media Sites." New York Times Magazine, 16 Feb. 2014, p. 9.
Nusca, Andrew. "Myspace Acquired by Time Inc, Fortune's Publisher." Fortune, 11 Feb. 2016, fortune.com/2016/02/11/myspace-acquired-time-inc/. Accessed 22 May 2024.
Robinson, Matthew. "Myspace Apologizes after Losing 12 Years' Worth of Music." CNN, 18 Mar. 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/03/18/us/myspace-lost-12-years-music-uploads-apology-intl-scli/index.html. Accessed 22 May 2024.
Smith, Adam. "Myspace Has Been Brought Back to Life—Sort of." The Independent, 8 Feb. 2021, www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/myspace-back-spacehey-b1799269.html. Accessed 22 May 2024.