Giving It Another Go

Back in 2005 MySpace was bought for a staggering $580 million. Even crazier was the fact that at the time the number seemed like a pretty fair price. Well, showing just how quickly things can switch when it comes to the hot website of the moment, last year MySpace was sold again, this time for just $35 million. (Let that serve as a cautionary tale for all social media sites.) One of the new investors in the site was musician Justin Timberlake, who said he would help with a redesign of the site, one which would focus on music. Rather than be a place for people to just share photos and connect with old friends, the new MySpace will focus on connecting artists to fans, letting people know what music subscribers are listening to and bringing undiscovered talent to a world-wide audience. Yesterday we got our first look at that redesign. I think it looks pretty good, even if it doesn't appear to have done anything but borrow aspects from Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. (Whatever, if you can't beat them, steal from them.) Still, I'm not convinced the new look and focus will suddenly return MySpace to its previous pop culture status and that is due to the one thing it never got around to redesigning - the name.

On the surface, you wouldn't think keeping the MySpace name would be a problem. After all, reports say the site still has 54 million members. (No word on how many of those people have logged on recently versus people who were simply too lazy to delete their profiles and haven't been on the site for years.) Still, no matter how inflated the numbers may be, most sites would kill to have anything approaching that level of traffic. Also, by keeping the name it saves people the effort of having to explain the website and sell it a second time. People have a rough idea of what the site should be for, which means you won't be trying to build an audience from the ground up. In many ways it is like trying to spin off a successful show - the viewers already feel like they have a familiarity with a couple of the characters so you don't have to spend the pilot episode introducing everyone and can immediately start to advance the plot, which is a huge advantage. (Unless, of course, that show is "Joey.") Plus, it is not like Facebook has a perfect record for customer satisfaction, so some of those disgruntled users could be looking for an alternative but not tech-savvy enough to know where the next big thing in social media is going to come from. Being able to go back to MySpace may be just the out they were looking for.

With all that being said, I do worry the stink of failure will pollute the well, so to speak. After all, the brand has already had a rather public collapse. People are often reluctant to give things a second try if there is a new option available and MySpace has to compete with new websites which are launching every day. A lot of people made up their minds about the site a long time ago and no amount of celebrity investors will get them to give it a second look. To them MySpace is nothing more than a punchline - another flash in the pan fad that everyone was really into for an hour before the far superior Facebook came along and crushed it. Now it is just something we can all laugh about on "I Loved the 2000s" along with Napster and BlackBerrys. It would be the same conundrum if a band like Nickelback decided they were going to change a couple members and go for a heavier sound. The Nickelback fans would stay, they may get a few people to come around and hear them play just to see what the new music sounded like, but a large majority of those people are going to stay away just because it's Nickelback and they have already formed an opinion about them. Sometimes if you are going to change it is better go big and change everything.

This comes down to the battle between name recognition versus reputation. It is nice to be able to work with a name people know, but it would be better if people didn't hear that name and snicker. The good news for MySpace investors is that if anyone should be able to figure this problem out, it's Justin Timberlake. This guy started at the Mickey Mouse Club and graduated into a boy band, which honestly should have been the kiss of death for his career as soon as he hit 30. Instead he went solo, started doing bit parts in movies, killed in a few appearances on "Saturday Night Live", graduated to larger roles in movies and now he owns golf courses and is marrying one of the hottest women on the planet. Seriously, even if you don't like his music you need to respect his career longevity. Besides as long as they keep it free than you know unsigned musicians will flock to any place that will give them a chance to promote themselves, so their membership should see a surge as garage bands design their websites well before they actually have any music to promote. I do think MySpace will start to be relevant on some level once again, but I doubt it will ever get back to the popularity level it once had. The good news for the most recent investors is that the bar to make their money back is much lower this time around.