Welcome to the MySpace Mosh Pit

Launching overnight, the MySpace Music site hopes to shake up the iTunes models a bit with ad-supported free streaming msuic from major labels. Users can assemble playlists they can swap with others. MySpace says eventually it will offer ringtones and concert tickets so that the site becomes a one-stop for tuneheads. In some sense MySapce already is a music hub, since more than half of teen music fans already use social networks to discover information about bands and concerts. MySpace convinced EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Sony ATV to participate and allow some of their otherwise fee-based fare to run free. I recall only a few years ago speaking with pie-in-the-sky techies who tried to peddle a free model for the music industry. There were schemes for inserting ad spots into iPod downloads, etc. A few years later and we have free Web radio providers like last.fm and Pandora essentially running the model already. MySpace brings to the party a massive youth music culture. I know my 16-year-old daughter gets music, movie and even book recommendations from the traffic across her MySpace page. Finding ways to harness that energy in the service of ad clients has been a challenge even for the mighty MySpace, which still has trouble selling its banners into profile pages at a decent rate. The same daughter who picks up entertainment recommendations from the social site also eschews these ads. “Why are they posting Viagara ads on my page?” she complains.