The Mighty Myspace

Don't look now Itunes but you have competition. Myspace has decided to jump into the digital music scene head first. In a bid to tighten up its popular online hangout, MySpace flipped the switch this past Thursday on a much-anticipated service that will give its roughly 120 million users free access to hundreds of thousands of songs from the world's largest recording labels. The stinger is that the music can be played only on personal computers connected to the Internet and listeners have to put up with advertising thrown across the screen. In order to transfer a song to a portable device such as an Apple Ipod you will have to cop the music through Amazon.com which sells songs for as little as 79 cents a piece.

One of the major differences that set Myspace aside from iTunes store is the service won't contain the protections that limit how many times a track can be copied. Along with that you can create an unlimited number of playlist containing up to 100 songs apiece.The idea is to get people to post different playlist on their profiles and expose associates and friends to new music.

The recording labels are crossing their fingers hoping this will cultivate more interest in more songs. In time they will hope to generate the revenue to help recoup the disease that has plagued CD sales since 1999. Numbers have fell from 12 billion to a projected 5 billion this year.

Besides Warner, the three other major recording labels — Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and EMI Music — also are opening up their libraries to the MySpace service, which will operate as a joint venture with the music industry. Sony ATV/Music Publishing and The Orchard also have joined the MySpace alliance. Its a team effort to take advantage of the Digital Era.

MySpace is starting with several hundred thousand songs, but expects to surpass the size of Apple's iTunes store, which stocks 8.5 million songs. When the smoke clears Myspace will have the richest catalog of content on the Internet.The music labels are hoping that the MySpace service can loosen the cobra clutch of iTunes, which has sold more than 5 billion songs since its 2003 inception and now ranks as the largest music retailer. Apple has vexed the music industry by refusing to allowing higher prices to be charged for the most popular songs.

Several other services, mostly peddling monthly subscription fees for access to large music libraries, have tried to tackle iTunes with little success. The list of foiled challengers include Yahoo Music, RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody and Napster Inc., which this month agreed to be acquired by Best Buy Co. for $121 million. Many have tried but 0 have achieved any success but now their are grins in the board room. MySpace appears to be in a better position to take on iTunes because its site has always emphasized music. About 5 million bands and singers have MySpace accounts, and two-third of its users stream music on their profiles.

In MySpace's early years, the music industry lashed out at the site as a haven for pirated songs. Universal Music even sued MySpace for copyright infringement; the case was settled in April to open the door for the new joint venture. As we all know if you can't beat them join them.

Indeed MySpace remains the Internet's largest social network but constantly have to look at Facebook Inc., whose decision to host a wide variety of outside applications — including some music programs — has helped nearly quadruple its audience in the past 18 months to about 90 million users. You have to give people a reason to stay on your website or its a wrap. Myspace is setting the table to get everyone in a trance.