MySpace losing its cool?

A response to Rory Cellan Jones’ article ‘Has MySpace lost its cool’ here

For musicians, I think not.  I once heard a teenager refer to Twitter as something for old people.  What is clear, each social network medium has it’s own tribe, and whilst there is some overlap, musicians have to understand that their customer base is wide.

What is so good about MySpace?  The embedded music player, the tools for connecting with fans and the fact that it is established make it still the first port of call for many musicians.  It has its problems as well; inflexible, cookie cutter style site pages not being the least.  However, many people who look for music, whether a fan, A&R or promoter, will look at a MySpace page.

What else is there?  Facebook is probably more fashionable but is certainly out of its honeymoon period.  An easy to use interface (at least it used to be) plus a clean look and a more personal interaction seem to make Facebook useful.  Add-in applications like Reverb Nation and you can have similar tools to MySpace without the hassle.  On a personal note, I have used Facebook to communicate a change of email address and phone number and I have picked up several gigs.

Twitter is something I have an uneasy relationship with:  see my earlier post ‘New Thoughts on Twitter’.  I recently provided some consultancy to a musician hoping to use Twitter to sell CD’s.  I think that until recently, the Twittersphere was peopled more by techie geeks and music industry types.  Now with the popularity of Twitter increasing, it certainly looks like an ideal way to interact with new audiences.

And don’t forget Bebo and Mog plus the other small networks of social media that are pretenders to the throne.

For now, MySpace and its cool coefficient is not in question, musicians need to use what is out there.

You may also find this interesting: http://scobleizer.com/2009/03/21/why-facebook-has-never-listened-and-why-it-definitely-wont-start-now/