Battle For Online TV Heats Up With Myspace TV Launching This Spring

This spring will see the launch of Myspace TV, a new venture by the social networking site, another name thrown into a flurry of activity surrounding online TV at the moment with Google making a deal with vendors to include Android on their devices, and the results of a report revealing that while use of online TV is growing, it’s still not as popular and traditional TV. TV is an interesting move for Myspace, indicating that online TV is set to become more and more prominent in 2012.  Social Media Times reported that the co-owner of Myspace Justin Timberlake, announced at CES 2012: “We’re ready to take television and entertainment to the next step by upgrading it to the social networking experience.”’ Digital Trends said that the announcement was made during a Panasonic press conference, as Panasonic ‘will be one of the first TV companies to support MySpace TV via its Viera Connect interface’. 

A few years ago, Myspace was perhaps best known for being the place many musical acts first got noticed by fans and made it big. The site now brands itself as a “social entertainment destination”, with an emphasis on music and celebrity. Myspace’s appeal has waned in recent years, so it seems natural that with stiff competition from other social network sites, that Myspace would choose to diversify in a bid to stand out from the crowd and offer something unique, something that will change people’s perceptions of the site and how it’s used. So what will Myspace TV offer? The announcement on the Myspace site says: ‘Whether you’re watching on a TV, laptop, tablet or smartphone, Myspace TV allows you to discover, share and comment on all the programs you and your friends are watching.’

Again this is part of a wider trend in online TV to create a more engaged, social experience than the passive activity it has traditionally been. Myspace TV is probably best placed to compete in the field of music videos, given that the site is best known for its musical artists’ pages, and perhaps it could challenge Vevo and Youtube in this respect. Myspace TV will have a range of music channels on its launch, and aims to add more original offerings over time. As yet it’s unclear how exactly Myspace TV will work, and all the site offers at the moment is a sign up for an invitation for early access, so we’ll have to wait and see if Myspace TV will be successful in “Making TV Social”.