Talking of MySpace, rumours are circulating that the social networking monolith may put systems in place that stop competitors to its download partners Snocap from selling music via artists MySpace pages. Which would be interesting (or irritating, perhaps, if you're an artist, or especially if you're a Snocap competitor), because to date one of the attractions of MySpace to artists is that they can embed digital features powered by other online services - like YouTube, Flickr or various download platforms - onto their own MySpace. As a result a number of download suppliers have made digital tools available that enable artists to easily include their own players or sell through platforms on a MySpace page.
But, as previously reported, MySpace is now gearing up to provide registered artists with their own MP3 download service, powered by Snocap, the company run by Shawn Fanning, the original founder of Napster, and that has led to speculation that as that service goes live MySpace will move to disable competing download facilities. Said speculation has probably increased after Digital Music News reported that MySpace had taken action to stop users from using digital tools like those made by a company called Revver which pump rival advertising onto MySpace pages.
That said, Revver directly competes with MySpace's own core revenue stream and therefore it is not a foregone conclusion that MySpace's policy toward such ad carrying 'widgets' would automatically apply to music services which compete with their partner Snocap, and insiders say that while the Murdoch owned social networking service is considering such moves against other download tools, no decisions have as yet been made.
In related news, the latest survey by US research firm Ipsos Insight into awareness of and attitude towards American digital music services, while topped by Napster and iTunes as usual, saw awareness of MySpace rise from just 15% last year to 54% this year, which is interesting. Though not as interesting as the fact that awareness of Napster and iTunes was 68% and 66% respectively - which is probably lower than you'd expect and a reminder that the whole digital music thing is not quite as big as those of us in the industry sometimes think. Awareness of Napster actually went down this year, from 79% last year.