The Digital Music Report 2008 (DMR2008) states that:
“There are more than 1.2 million rock acts and 1.7 million R&B acts alone clamouring for attention on MySpace. This overwhelming number of new bands and music available to consumers also highlights one of the key roles for record companies in the digital space. The need for filtering, selection, marketing and recommendation is greater than ever.”
So I think, ‘Great!’ let’s make an application, or even better a website that taps into that problem and utilises it to make discovering new music easy. No one has the time these days to be searching around with no clear direction. We want things quick and easy, no fuss. Then I remember that MySpace has just launched a new music player, and come to agreements with three of the top labels to promote their music by letting users create playlists (similar to LastFM I think), and purchase tracks too.
My head is still spinning with crazy ideas of what my new website could do, pull band information, categorise them, pick up on influences and keywords, link through to the music player, and have easy ‘Add as friend’ buttons. But as a Facebook user, I am a little out of touch with all the new features that MySpace are implementing, and due to my inner celebrations about how I’ve finally landed on something that could possibly be a solid project, I totally overlook the glaringly obvious ‘Filter Results’ box on the Search page. Damn.
Is there still something that they aren’t doing quite as well as they should be? I don’t know…
Back to square one.
