As expected, MySpace yesterday officially announced its plans to launch a MySpace Music download service, a fully fledged digital music store. So, here's what we now know about it.
First, Universal, Warner and SonyBMG are signed up. EMI are not, though word has it that's simply because those previously reported changes in senior management there have delayed the deal making. The indies are not involved yet, but the social networking outfit says that's simply because it wanted to get the majors on board first to ensure the whole venture was commercially viable, and that they will now seek to get the indie labels and aggregators on board as soon as they can.
As expected, the new service will be accessible via its own page within the MySpace network, but also via existing artist and fan pages. As also expected, the service will offer DRM-free downloads plus ad funded previews (audio and video). And will sell tickets, merchandise and ringtones for most artists too. And as also also expected, there'll be a mobile dimension powered by Jamba, a mobile content company in which MySpace's parent News Corp also have a stake.
The service will go live over the next few months, which different aspects of it going live one after the other so that that whole thing is in place by the summer, though, that said, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe indicated that technology partners are only just being put into place for some components, suggesting a summer deadline may be optimistic.
The specifics of the deal between MySpace and the majors are not known, though Billboard reckons that the music service has been set up as a stand-alone company and that the major record companies have been given a stake in it.
Although MySpace is operating in an increasingly competitive marketplace when it comes to social networking, some are optimistic about its chances of gaining a fair share of the digital music market, despite its relatively late entry in that sector. MySpace remains the social networking service of choice for labels and artists, so enjoys a particularly high traffic of music fans. And many labels already using their artists' MySpace pages as key tools in their marketing campaigns, so it will make sense for them to use the social network's inbuilt download store to simplify and increase sell-through from that activity. The company also has a good advertising and sponsorship division in place who could successfully capitalise on the potential of the ad-funded preview components of the new service, which in turn will benefit from the fact many music fans already use MySpace artist pages to preview new songs.
The only caution, really, is that this isn't MySpace's first attempt at adding download functionality to its social network. Previously it worked with SnoCap to offer a service enabling artists to sell their music directly off their MySpace pages. That service didn't take off at all, though was hindered by a lack of interest from the majors, and the insistence of the only major which did participate - Warner - that music be sold in DRMed WMA formats, which aren't iPod compatible. But MySpace, despite its relatively rapid rise and continued popularity among some web users, isn't known for being the most technically sound web service, with some of its facilities confusing or irritating to use, or just pretty unreliable. The social network will need to get its technical solutions just right to capitalise on the albeit large potential of creating a digital music service that can compete with iTunes.