MySpace.com: Exploring Online Music Spaces

(A paper presented at the Intersections 2006 conference, Mar. 13-14, at Ryerson University)

Don’t worry. Anyone who hasn’t heard of MySpace is not a loser. I do think it is worth knowing about though, for reasons that are important to me as a communication and culture scholar, broadly, and as a popular music scholar, more specifically. This clip attests to the fact that discussions of MySpace.com (and social networking more generally) have erupted in the popular press in the last few months. Despite the tongue-in-cheek tone of the clip, myspace.com really is one of the hottest things going right now on the net. Launched in late 2003, it had 8 million members by 2004 (MySpace Invader, Fine). By the end of 2005, there were 32 million users (Fine). The current number of members stands just shy of 65 million. It is rumoured to get twice as many daily hits as Google, which apparently is incontestable proof as far as internet stats go (Instant Grat, Hadju). Because of this ballooning of (mostly teenage) users, parents, school administrators, marketing companies and the popular press have all taken a belated interest in what is going on at myspace.com. Most of the talk around the site concerns issues about safety, security and privacy. What are the kids doing on this site? Who are they interacting with, and what kinds of revealing and dangerous information is being shared and exposed? My space has been linked to (and blamed for) increased sexual predation and bullying (Big Audience, Oser). Without wanting to demean the importance of these kinds of questions, the fear, like the fear accompanying many new technologies or youth behaviours seems slightly overblown. Some academics, thankfully, have looked beyond this and have begun to examine fruitful aspects of social networks such as identity presentation and negotiation. Danah Boyd, for example, argues MySpace is a kind of “digital public” where kids can meet and explore their (and their friends’) identity. Almost like the digital version of hanging out at the mall, MySpace is a relatively unregulated and unrestricted place for youth to be free from the impositions of parents (Identity Production, Boyd).

As interesting as the social network aspects of this site are for scholars of communication and culture, for this conference, I wanted to focus on something I think is being relatively neglected in the emerging discourse about the site; namely MySpace as an example of an online music space that is affecting several aspects of the music process. MySpace is just on example of the many technological changes facing the production, distribution and consumption of music. From internet audio streams to downloads to musical ring tones, new outlets for the exchange (e.g. myspace.com) and sale (e.g. iTunes, Puretracks) of music are evolving and creating markets where none existed before. Be it on cell phones, iPod’s or the internet, the business and materiality of music is changing as novel spaces surface. In this light, MySpace is not just a social network, but an important space where artists, fans, big businesses, private entrepreneurs and music itself all rub up against each other (sometimes uncomfortably).

To move away from the typical analysis of the site as a social network or an expression of youth identity online, I draw from a paper by Henrik Bodker (2004) on the changing materiality of music in the digital age. I will begin by giving a quick overview of Bodker and then consider the ways in which music materializes on MySpace. I am particularly interested in how music looks, sounds and moves in this space and believe that we need to better understand the opportunities and limits presented by music as a digitized commodity. Doing this requires a brief tangent mid-way through the presentation into some of the political economic aspects of the site. It is a tangent I hope you will tolerate for I believe it helps contextualize MySpace as an emerging space for music, for commerce, and a space for interaction among and within musicians and fans.

Bodker’s Changing Materiality

In a paper written in 2004 entitled “The Changing Materiality of Music”, Bodker calls for an increased focused on the material aspects of music. While much popular music scholarship focuses on “meaning” or “fan culture”, Bodker is more interested how music looks, feels, is stored and circulated in our culture. Since analysis of music as a digitized good tends to focus on how the “immateriality” of digital music allows for greater piracy and copyright violation, Bodker uses the idea of materiality to focus on the “changes that these new developments may invoke with respect to the cultural and social usages of music” (3). Drawing from Will Straw’s work on the material culture of music, Bodker’s material focus turns him towards questions regarding storage space, format types and what the idea of a “collection” means when we factor in digital files. Will people prioritize their music based on a hierarchy of materialities (i.e. favourite songs/albums/artists must be purchased or obtained physically, while songs not as important can be simply downloaded)? What about the overlap between the digital and the physical collection? New types of distribution (i.e. digital singles, digital albums) and new ways of obtaining music (without cover art, by hyperlinks) alter the very relationship a listener has with a song. Para-textual elements (like album covers and liner notes) are not always available in digital form and if they are, they do not necessarily represent a similar experience for consumers. All these avenues of analysis, for Bodker, are opened up when we consider the materiality of music, rather than its meaning or its fans. With this in mind, I will now turn to examine how music looks, sounds and circulates on myspace.com, and the social and cultural uses of music that arise as a result.

A Space for Music

Started by an ex-musician, Tom Anderson, and his business partner, Chris DeWolf, (MySpace Guys, Stone) myspace.com was originally conceived as a kind of Napster-meets-Friendster website (Newsweek, 2005). Anderson thought the concept of social networking would be a great way for musicians to attract a fan base and for fans to be exposed to new up and coming music. For artists, the MySpace experience begins when they sign up and create a page for themselves or their band. Artists are encouraged to put up their music along with pictures, bios, influences etc… The site also allows artists to notify users of any upcoming shows and connects them to band blogs (basically, an online journal). Songs are posted in mp3 format and artists can choose whether they want the audio streamed or offered for download. The profile interface allows for jpegs of album covers, and also allows other band pictures. In this sense, the profile page can bee a kind of one-stop shop to get to know a particular artist. The profile, as a whole, serves as a mini-website for artists. Some artists rely on their profiles more than others (i.e. many artists keep very basic MySpace pages as an advertisement for shows or to direct traffic to the artist’s official website). Drawing from Will Straw, it is interesting to think that MySpace profiles in a sense “mop up” a whole slew of media forms within their very structure: concert announcement posters, classified ads, press releases, albums and album art etc. This is not to say that posters, flyers and album art will suddenly stop existing, but here on MySpace, these materials are mopped up and arranged in a certain way to give artists another form of expression.

The other central feature to the profile pages, not completely controlled by the artists, is the Friends section. Fans or other users can request to be your friend and an image of them and their link will appear on the profile page. This is how networking occurs. Links on each profile page offer communication tools (i.e. chat, email, etc…) to maintain this network. The term friend should be taken with a grain of salt….some “Friends” are actually friends of the band, some are die-hard fans, others are just trying to promote themselves. Demetri from the Daily Show, whose page is shown here, for example, has over 34,000. There is thus a certain false-ness to many of the interactions going on MySpace, and I don’t say this as a judgment, despite the how loaded the term false is. It seems that most of the people who are listed as “friends” are really using your space to advertise their space. It is not necessarily that these users are your fans, but rather, they are hoping that your fans will eventually become their fans. Comments range from “Hey Joan love your voice it is very rich emotionally melodic, You might appreciate my songs: My daddy and road tripping with my mom, those 2 songs come straight from the heart. Keep it up!” to more explicitly obvious in their aims “hey if u like post hardcore music then check out evearose” (posted on an R&B site.) The reasons for adding someone as a friend, or for requesting to be added are not in the least bit altruistic, but most users seem to understand and accept this.

Unless users are visiting an artist’s page directly, they will likely start at the music home page. Here, users have the option to search for bands by name, genre, band members etc… Users can also check out some of the featured artists/top artists (which get to be featured or top by page views, links or deals with MySpace). There is also a section called “The Booth” which features an entire album and an extended description of the band being spotlighted. There’s no definitive “type” of music represented on the site. Artists can classify themselves in over 75 genres, but most fall in the realm of Indie, Pop, Rock, Electronica, Hip-Hop, Metal. There are independent and big-name bands on the site. Generally, the big name artists are the ones that receive the most prominence. It wasn’t always like this. When the site started and it wasn’t as attractive a commodity, the site regularly featured up and coming indie bands. Now, indie acts have to compete with new album previews from the likes of Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails.

Recalling Bodker, it is interesting to think of the experience of visiting MySpace compared to the act of visiting a record store. The unique materiality of digital music (i.e. metadata, cross-reference-able) affects the way music is sorted, categorized and selected. The links to and from various friends expose users to artists they might not otherwise see. The very process of discovering music changes, as the entire site is one giant listening booth. Also, the interplay between artists on MySpace should be considered relationally since users of MySpace are always connected to other users. Sometimes the connection is direct, in the case of friends, or indirect in the case of mass bulletins; regardless, users are only users in relation to other users. This has implications when we consider the fact that small name acts appears on the same level as big name acts. This gives the sense that anyone could be discovered (even if our skepticism of marketing informs us that this is not totally true). Similarly, big name acts derive credibility and authenticity for appearing in such a seemingly “democratic” venue.

A Space for Commerce

All these discussions of the materiality of the music commodity lead us to consider the commercial activity going on here, primarily in terms of marketing and distribution. As I alluded to above, profiles allow bands to market their image and their music. Artists seem can offer their tracks for free download, though many artists stream two or three of their bigger hits and direct users their official homepages or online music retailers. The site prohibits the sale of any merchandise on the site, but there is plenty of room for tour advertisements and information about the types of stuff you could buy through other means (i.e. official websites, iTunes etc…). For artists, the site can be a very direct and personal way to interact with fans. It’s also an ideal medium, in some respects, for musicians who are tired of dealing with the middleman. Why bother with the hassles of a major record label when the changing materiality of the music commodity allows artists to create tracks on their home computer, post them online along with graphics, pictures and other artist statements, and receive instant feedback. Users, meanwhile, benefit as they access tons of “free” content, search and discover hidden talent and interact with their favourite artists.

Despite these potential benefits, the site also forces artists to figure out how they can use their page to most effectively gather hits? What can you do to make your page stand out within the search parameters? Just because an artist has a page up doesn’t mean it will get visits. Much time has to be spent spreading an artist’s profile. This “Why can’t I get, just one click” mentality drives MySpace, as it does many other sites on the web. But this kind of viral word-of-mouth marketing, like many other forms of advertising, usually favours those with the most dollars. Many record labels now have hired employees whose sole focus is to manage their artists MypSpace presence.

There is another level of commerce to consider: the ownership and maintenance of the site. MySpace has become a prime destination for users in the 14-24 year old age group. As the number of users on MySpace has ballooned, it has also become a prized destination for advertisers. Recently, Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp purchased the parent company that runs the site for over $580 million (Look Who, Lachinsky). There was apparently an original backlash to the site’s new corporate owners but the site traffic has continued to proliferate. For NewsCorp, the site provides rich user data regarding the behaviour of a prized advertising demographic. Recalling Dallas Smythe’s idea of the audience commodity, it is interesting to think of the work being done by the MySpace audience. While users get access to free content (music, text, video) and to the means to create their own content, the exchange is far greater than simply having to look at a few banner ads. In MySpace, NewsCorp has a virtual laboratory that churns out real-time insights into emerging trends in music, blogging and youth culture in general. Unlike NewsCorp’s newspaper or television network, the content MySpace uses to draw in users is content created by the very users themselves. The industry of paid workers who create content for NewsCorp is now joined by 60 million MySpace users who are giving their content, not just their eyeballs, for free.

Aside from user created content, NewsCorp, not surprisingly, is also not afraid to use the site as a way to advertise its other media properties. Many of Fox’s films and TV shows have profile pages and links to purchase DVD’s, posters, T-Shirts and other paraphernalia. Most efforts seem benign enough in that they are labeled as advertisements.

However, NewsCorp is also excelling at working its properties seamlessly into the site. Take for example Fox’s promotion for an upcoming show called Free Ride. In January of this year, a month before the show was set to debut on Fox, profiles for the show’s two main characters appeared on MySpace. They seemed to be like any other profile, average 20-something guys with taste in funky art (and a perhaps odd over-indexed preference for Fox TV shows). Marketers for the show collected friends like any other user; they invited Friends and got people to visit or click through to the site, check it out and hopefully return. As the show got closer to launching, a full profile for the show was established and ads for the show were placed on each profile page.

Although this is a TV based example, it is easy to see how a similar tactic could be applied for bands. In fact, MySpace has already teamed up with Interscope records to release a MySpace Album, and plans to develop a MySpace satellite radio, accessible by cell phone. They have also recently added a film and video section to the site (MySpace Guys, Stone). Free Ride is just one example of many new types of marketing initiatives that are sure to come myspace users’ way now that NewsCorp has such a hugely desirable target audience. These types of initiatives force users and artists to question what kinds of “friend” requests they are receiving. Are people visiting a user’s profile generally interested in the user or are they more interested in marketing their own wares? It will be interesting to see how MySpace changes in the future, as Fox continues to explore different means to benefit from the valuable target audience they have purchased.

Despite this somewhat negative portrayal of the role of corporate interests on MySpace, it should be noted that part of the reason for MySpace’s relative success has been due to its responsiveness to users’ needs and demands. Also, users obviously benefit from advertising themselves and from all the gains that come along with social networking and identity management. However, there are some underlying economics to the site that warrant further discussion. I do not mean to sound as if I am advocating against user-created content. I'm all for it. Rather, I think a more critical look at the kind of commodities produced by MySpace, who is producing them and who is benefiting is a needed complement to socio-cultural analyses.

Emerging Spaces

As an emerging space, MySpace offers host of issues for communication and cultural scholars to explore. Myspace.com is not simply an emerging social network site where the circulation of music occurs tangentially; the site is transforming the materiality of the music commodification process. Although I am not fully confident that MySpace will be around in two years, the insights it yields are in part applicable to other venues of online music distribution. I also believe the site’s emphasis on music (and now video and film) will give it more staying power than the now (almost) obsolete Friendster.com. Focusing on the material aspects of the way these commodities circulate on the site allows us to think about the kind of “space” that gets created at MySpace. Profiles are spaces for advertising and community building. They are also spaces for representation and identity. While some profiles are planted for marketing purposes, others resemble more a kind of personally maintained domestic environment; something we might judge like we judge people’s apartments: how cluttered is it, how well designed is it, how easy is it to move around or hang out.

This proliferation of personal profile spaces, however, creates a multi-voiced space. There are various levels of discourses directed at various sorts of readers (artists to fans, friends to friends, companies to consumers etc.). Audiences have the chance to be users. The artist and the fan are both involved in both production and consumption at the same time. In further work, I hope to conduct a more detailed analysis of some of the actual music on the site, because I believe valuable insights lie in the very sounds that come from MySpace. For this first pass however, the sheer abundance of music on the site makes such an analysis difficult. Instead, I found it necessary to understand the materiality of the music commodification process going on at MySpace, to think about the materials and media that get mopped up and incorporated in the very structure of the user profiles. As the music industry struggles to understand and react to the implications of what some have called “the mp3 revolution”, I hope this analysis of the materials and economics that constitute MySpace.com has helped show that there is more to this site than simply having 9000 friends.