When it comes to free media streaming, the United States is flush with premium content from great sites like Hulu and MySpace Music. But aside from a handful of exceptions, the rest of the world is out of luck. Today, the balance changes a bit: MySpace has just launched its hugely popular MySpace Music service in Australia and New Zealand, bringing those regions unlimited streaming of songs and albums from all four major music labels, as well as many indies.
AU/NZ users will have access to the same features as the US site, including shareable playlists, artist activity feeds, and other social functionality. But there is at least one notable difference: while MySpace Music launched in the United States with Amazon as its partner for purchasing digital downloads, the AU/NZ version has teamed with Apple’s iTunes. MySpace wouldn’t comment on whether this is foreshadowing a larger partnership, but we may well see the Apple deal extend stateside. MySpace likely had an exclusive partnership with Amazon for the US launch, but it’s been a year (which may well have been the length of the deal), so it may soon be free to explore other options.
Since launching last fall, MySpace Music has been something of a bright spot for the otherwise faltering social network. The site has seen a tenfold growth in traffic since launching, with the US portal drawing 18.95 million users (it’s also the #1 site in time spent for the all important 18-34 demographic, though some of this can be attributed to the fact that users can leave it playing in the background). MySpace Music also recently rolled out a much improved homepage and has seen a number of exclusive releases.
They’re planning a UK launch too: http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1038801&c=1
That’s so amusing. I thought everywhere in the world would be accessing myspace by now, with all the same features. I guess they crunched the numbers and saw dollar signs.
internet must be free and the same, for all the people around the world
iTunes instead of amazon MP3 is most likely due to the fact that amazon MP3 is not available in Australia but iTunes is. This really shows up the limitations on amazon from a global perspective for music – not unlike hulu. A bit more on our thoughts on this at http://www.piracypayback.org/2009/05/combating-piracy-you-can-and-must-compete-with-free/
Well done to myspace for getting this across the line!
I think the USA are a long way behind services like Spotify. I think the rest of the options are terrible. Imeem is in financial trouble, Myspace Music is just the ability for artists to put 5 tracks on their profile and if they are signed to a major collect some royalties.
The USA really need to sort out their music market first before trying to push it onto the rest of the world.
I love that Frogstomp is considered a “classic” album. I feel like my dad all of a sudden.
It seems people at MySpace finnally figured out that they won’t survive as a social network for the masses. Music was the first reason people signed up to MySpace and if they stay on track at MySpace they can establish themselves as THE music network. That’s a niche Facebook won’t be able to threaten them. For now at least. So make MySpace Music available everywhere and your good to stay.
Here in Australia – iTunes is really it for digital downloads and swamps the other players in both content and market share.
“In digital purchases, 69% purchased music from iTunes Australia, 8% from Big Pond Music, 4% from Sony’s Bandit, .03% from EMI’s Musichead, 2% from ChaosMusic, 3.5% from the newly opened Nokia Comes with Music store, 1% from Vodafone’s Music Station and 12% from other Australian online stores.”
I wonder when myspace music will go international…
MySpace for music? really sound interesting. Will surely check it soon. MySpace also work hard to walk with facebook i think.
Too bad we have download quotas in AU/NZ. Fuck streaming anything.
Looking forward for it going international. I wonder whether it will be more popular in Torrentz compared to the real world though
That’s a niche Facebook won’t be able to threaten them