MySpace’s lost millions

In case anyone missed it, MySpace is steadily loosing the battle against Facebook and other social media website, new figures from tech analysts showed yesterday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12862139

The site lost around 10 million unique users from January to February, despite the company’s attempt to become more specialized in catering for music fans and musicians. According to the Chitika ad network, 48 percent of those who still use MySpace access music-related sites.

MySpace vs Facebook unique visitors from http://doteduguru.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/myspace-vs-facebook-unique-visitors.png

The company also intends to lose about 500 staff worldwide.

Could this soon be a thing of the past?

A number of reasons have been suggested for this trend, including increased competition from the more professional Facebook, competition from other musically-focussed social networks like Apple’s Ping and younger users becoming sick of the website. Or maybe it’s just the horrible music which blares every time you open one of their pages.

So, is this a blow for musicians who want to produce UGC?

It seems unlikely that even if MySpace does fail, it will limit the ability of new musicians to get their material out into the world. There are so many other channels for them to use- YouTube, Ping, Buzznet, Last FM- that there will always be a way for them to put it on the internet.

Still, it’s a shame that one of the grandaddies of social networking is now in such dire straits.