The Power and Reign of MySpace

From Wikipedia

Myspace,^[6] stylized My_____^[7] and previously MySpace, is a social networking website. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California^[8] where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, News Corp. Digital Media, owned by News Corporation.

Myspace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006, a position that it held throughout 2007 until 2008.^[9] In April 2008, according to comScore, Myspace was overtaken internationally by its main competitor,Facebook based on monthly unique visitors.^[10][11] Myspace employs 1,000 employees, after laying off 30% of its workforce in June 2009;^[3] the company does not disclose revenues or profits separately from News Corporation. Quantcast estimates MySpace's monthly U.S. unique visitors at 43.2 million.^[12]

Music

Wikinews has related news:MySpace to take on iTunes

Myspace profiles for musicians in the website's Myspace Music section differ from normal profiles in allowing artists to upload their entire discographies consisting of MP3 songs. The uploader must have rights to use the songs (e.g. their own work, permission granted, etc.). Unsigned musicians can use Myspace to post and sell music using SNOCAP, which has proven popular among Myspace users.

Shortly after Myspace was sold to Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News and 20th Century Fox, in 2005, they launched their own record label, MySpace Records, in an effort to discover unknown talent currently on Myspace Music.^[20] Regardless of the artist already being famous or still looking for a break into the industry, artists can upload their songs onto Myspace and have access to millions of people on a daily basis. Some well known singers such as Lily Allen and Sean Kingston gained fame through Myspace. The availability of music on this website continues to develop, largely driven by young talent. Over eight million artists have been discovered by Myspace and many more continue to be discovered daily.^[57] In late 2007, the site launched The Myspace Transmissions, a series of live-in-studio recordings by well-known artists.

Myspace, in 2008, redesigned its music page adding new features for all musicians. These new features include the users' ability to create playlists, resembling the functions of Last.fm and other social music websites, along with the popular ProjectPlaylist that is popular on profiles. The new music features also archive songs from many popular artists, resembling the services of iTunes and Napster. In March 2010, listening to the full song in the search results has been disable and had been replaced by 30 second samples. Myspace music also suggests songs based on the songs you are currently listening to or the songs you had added to the playlist, making it as a music discovery tool. Myspace Music also added an improved playlist feature and artist profile, along with better music suggestion features, making it one of the highest rated and advanced music discovery sites on the Web. The site features charts similar to Billboard charts and it keeps track of the most popular music liked by users of all genres. It also enables user to view popular music in other countries of the world, mostly in Europe and major Asian countries such as China and Russia.

As I come to design a webpage for my band 'Forgetting Last Friday' I have now decided to create a MySpace as it  is now widely used to promote the band.