MySpace Launches a Free-Music Revolution
By Josh Quittner
I like to boast, smugly, that I haven't paid for a CD in years. Instead, I subscribe to a music service called Rhapsody that gives me all the tunes I want for $12.99 a month. But with social-networking giant MySpace unveiling its new music service Sept. 25, I'm becoming less smug by the moment.
To begin with, MySpace Music is free, and users get instant access to a vast library of songs. The site has inked deals to upload the catalogs of the four major labels: EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. Throw in songs from the 5 million artists who already have pages on the site, and MySpace has a pretty good starter set.
How good? MySpace won't say how big its song library is but admits it trails rivals like Rhapsody and iTunes. Although MySpace's agreements with those four mondo labels cover more than 2 million titles, a friend who works at one of the Big Four says the site is struggling to get the catalogs online and is also dealing with "artist sensitivities" -- meaning a few musicians are unwilling to make some of their albums available.
Over time, MySpace says its library will grow and be competitive with those of Rhapsody and iTunes, something that music industry insiders say is part of the Grand Plan for music. "A healthy ecosystem -- that's all we want," my friend says. "Music as a utility." In other words, the labels want to see the same library of music available everywhere, in every possible way: for free and by subscription; streaming from sites and pay-per-download; locked and unlocked. Let the best business model win! The labels make money every which way. Indeed, both Sony Ericsson and its rival, Nokia, are launching services overseas this year (and later in the U.S., my friend says) that would give cell phone users access to the same vast music library, for free. The tunes would be linked to the cellular handsets, but even if you dropped your mobile carrier, you could keep the songs you downloaded.
The current size of its library notwithstanding, MySpace Music does a number of things that will excite music fans -- and might help the social network fight off rival Facebook, which since April has surpassed it in monthly traffic. A set of tools called MyMusic lets you create a limitless number of playlists (with as many as 100 songs on each) that you can listen to on the site or share with your buddies. Say, for instance, you're hankering for some Coldplay. Create a playlist, drag and drop all four albums, and you're good to go. The full-length songs stream at something less than CD quality (128 kilobits per sec.), but it's good enough on a computer.
It almost goes without saying that MySpace will also happily sell you songs and albums its new service doesn't cover; the site has partnered with Amazon, which handles the transactions and sends you unlocked MP3s. Indeed, when you set up MyMusic, you can add an Amazon applet and install a music downloader (Mac and Windows are supported, I'm told) that will drop the purchased music wherever you want, including into iTunes, so you can transfer the songs to your iPod. (Songs range from 79 cents to 99 cents each.)
That's all pretty cool, but MySpace's real boon is providing people a better way to find new music. Music discovery is all the rage these days; Apple's Genius feature and Microsoft's Zune music player both rely on a computer-mediated, algorithmic approach to recommendations. MyMusic's solution is simpler, and far better, I think: it lets you know what your friends are listening to. Like Facebook, MySpace has a news feed, which figures out which of your friends interests you most and communicates their doings to you. So, if my musician brother Seth Augustus (a stage name) adds an interesting tune to his playlist, my news feed will report that. I can even subscribe to his playlists.
That said, MySpace faces some hurdles. For one thing, Seth is my only friend on MySpace; the rest of my family and all of my friends are on Facebook. It remains to be seen whether MyMusic will be enough to get them to migrate. Also, Rhapsody streams music to my home music system, Sonos, which wirelessly connects to speakers throughout my house. By comparison, the free portion of MySpace Music streams tunes only to the computer at this point. So I'll keep subscribing to Rhapsody, but I'm guessing its days -- in my household, anyway -- are numbered.