In that aforementioned New York Times piece it quotes Guy Hands as telling the managers of some of EMI's biggest artists that "Rupert Murdoch says MySpace is going to be the future of music, not record labels, I am going to prove him wrong". Well, Hands is yet to do so really, though Murdoch is yet to really prove MySpace is the future of music as well.
Though, as previously reported, it is holding up as a music destination site despite it having a famously clunky user experience, and despite most social networkers jumping ship to Facebook. And now we hear the social networking major is about to undergo a major redesign, so perhaps the clunkiness will go too.
Of course there have been constant tweaks on the MySpace site over the last two years, mainly making the user profile experience more Facebook like, but word has it there will be a noticeable revamp of look and feel later this week. The previously reported new MySpace music service, designed to launch the social networking site as a serious player in the music download market, should follow later this year.