The social networking portal is all set to take its brand offline with the launch of 'Secret Shows' in India, providing a platform for new talented musicians.
Rupert Murdoch, appears to have finally figured out a way to make money from MySpace — a $500 million acquisition. MySpace, the underdog among other leading social networking sites in India, will launch a music portal called Music Central that will stream music content from independent and regional artists along with Bollywood music. The social networking portal will also take its brand offline through MySpace Secret Shows.
With a debut Secret Show scheduled in Mumbai this Friday, the MySpace country manager, Hari Krishnan is confident of driving in up to 400 music aficionados. “It will be a free concert for MySpace users and we will also facilitate on-the-spot registration for new users,” Krishnan said. The social networking site is planning to organise at least one Secret Show every month in cities like New Delhi, Bangalore among others.
Globally, Secret Shows are synonymous with launching several leading names in the global music scene and Krishnan is hoping to replicate the same success with Indian bands. He said, “It can be a great franchise for MySpace to launch new talent and for music companies to pick up bright musicians.”
Capitalising on Comscore data which claims that MySpace users spend an average 36.2 minutes on the site every day, more than the 34 minutes spent on the closest competing sites, MySpace is also feeling upbeat about its music portal. “We have added 500 Indian artists on the music portal who will blog, chat and let fans download or stream their songs, videos for free,” informed Krishnan. DRM-free downloads will also be available, either advertising supported or on a pay basis like Amazon’s Music Store.
MySpace Music, a joint music venture with equity stakes from major labels also allows users to stream music on-demand, create playlists and add widget music players to their profiles. It took Apple iTunes — the most popular music download portal — around 3 years to cross one billion songs download mark, whereas MySpace Music streamed a billion songs in just a few days after it was launched in September last year in the US.
Aspiring to make MySpace Music Central as the place where much of India would go to hear any artist’s music right away, Krishnan knows that advertisers and record labels would be clamouring to peak into the goldmine of data collected by them.
