Say hello to the new, redesigned Myspace!

Myspace comes out of beta with a new website and iOS app that cater to music fans

It's official: Myspace is back! And it's... well, it's different. 

Seriously, forget everything you knew about the old MySpace. The terrible fonts. The annoying way people could make songs repeat over and over in the background of their profiles. The people who waaaaay overdid it so that you couldn't even read their posts. All of that is gone.

The new Myspace came out of beta mode as both a website, and as an iOS app, on Wednesday, and is now put all of its focus on two key areas: music and mobile.

Among the most noteworthy features of the new service, which is more of a Spotify-like streaming service than the old social network of old:

• Myspace users are given a "persistent player," which gives them streaming access to 53 million songs, intuitive drag-and-drop functionality for a superior music experience.
• The My Radio feature makes it so that users can create, and program, their own radio stations. They will then have unlimited streaming of these stations for free.
• Community Insights, an analytics suite that offers a set of visualized data reports telling artists how big their audience is, which fans are most influential, and what’s resonating with them. 
• The Discover feature, which allows members to filter searches by account type, such as musician, photographer, writer, or even developer.

Oh, and there are GIFs. The new Myspace also comes with a tool which will allow users to create, and then share, animated GIFs. 

In case you were one of those people still using the old Myspace, don't worry: your profile will be upgraded to the new platform. Members are able to log in either using their existing Myspace account, or they can go through their Facebook or Twitter account instead.

Myspace as a music platform

Its been well known for a while that the new Myspace was going to be a music service. On top of a public partnership with Justin Timberlake, there was also a leaked presentation back in November showed how Muspace was planning to try to compete with Spotify.

Myspace made only $15 million in revenue in 2012, and was on track to lose $43 million. 2013 looks better, but not by much, with revenue expected to go up to $58 million, but with loses still expected to be $23 million.

According to the presentation, the service expects to eventually become profitable again by launching a subscription model in the second quarter of 2013, and by launching an e-commerce wing in the second half of the year, where it will sell merchandise and tickets.

But you really have to question whether or not this is a good move Myspace. Everyone is getting into the music streaming space these days, from Google to Twitter.

Most recently it was Apple, which debuted its iTunes Radio earlier this week. 

It allows users to get pre-built “featured stations,” or tp can create their own stations. They  can also search for an artist or band and create a station of similar music based on that search, or modify their stations by tapping “play more songs like this” or “never play this again.”

Myspace is entering into a very crowded space. Granted it has at least some built in presence (one that has been dwindling for years) but I just do not see it distinguishing itself enough to make a big dent in the space.

(Image source: https://myspace.com)