MySpace-Facebook Musical rivalry

By Mani Raj

According to comScore Inc., MySpace is still the largest social network in the United States, with 70 million users, but Facebook is catching up quickly with 61 million.

Courtney Holt, a recording label executive, is being asked to turn MySpace's attention to the slowing music industry and to improve the finances of MySpace as it tries to compete with rival Facebook.

So three months ago, Holt took charge of Myspace Music establishing joint venture with the major recording labels. Now the MySpace Music service lets MySpace users to put multiple songs on a list to play for free on their profile pages, rather than only one song in the past. Users can also create playlists which allow them to swap songs with their friends.

The songs now carry links that let people buy downloads of their favorite tracks from Amazon.com Inc. This new setup gives MySpace and the music industry, share of song-download sales from Amazon. This could also generate revenue from ads. Holt plans to make MySpace a seller of concert tickets and band merchandise. He wants to accomplish this by providing better targeting songs, ring tones, artists and ads at the MySpace users who will probably be most interested in them.

This newly revamped version of MySpace Music could be the differentiator it needs to stay ahead of Facebook. As Facebook lacks a music player and relies heavily on third parties to create them for their members to download. --------

MySpace-Facebook Musical rivalry

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