New Myspace Opens to Public, How to Get Started?

By Brian Anthony Hernandez at Mashable:
New Myspace — with its drastically different redesign — has left invite-only mode, opening up the revamped social network to the public.

The landing page for New.Myspace.com shows a dapper Justin Timberlake and promotes his new "Suit and Tie" single that he released late Sunday night.

Timberlake, who took an ownership stake in the company in 2011, had given the world a sneak peek of New Myspace in September, but now anyone can use the refurbished network.

The modern design features horizontal navigation, and like Pinterest, is heavy on visuals. But Myspace wouldn't be Myspace without a focus on music


The New Myspace: How to Get Started

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Justin Timberlake Teases Sexy New MySpace

 
By Christina Warren at Mashable:
Fifteen months after its acquisition by Specific Media, we’re finally getting a sneak peek at the new MySpace.
Justin Timberlake — who took an ownership stake in the new MySpace — tweeted a link to a video previewing the new service.



Although Timberlake and members of the MySpace team were at CES 2012, most of the discussion was about a partnership with Panasonic and not the rebirth of the new service.
The video points to a new MySpace URL, New.MySpace.com, where users can give their email address for an invite to the new service.

What Is the New MySpace

 

So what is the new MySpace? The video overview doesn’t go into a lot of detail, but this is what we can ascertain so far:

• Users log in with Facebook or Twitter and can then choose to bring photos or other information with them.
• Status updates look similar to the mobile app Path, with photos largely displayed and user comments showing up underneath.
• There is a large music component the service, which includes a way to browse albums, find popular songs and artists and more.

The music component is interesting — especially since this was historically always one of MySpace’s strong suits. What is less clear is if MySpace is building its own music service or if it has partnered with a provider such as Spotify, Rdio or Rhapsody.

The interface looks clean and attractive — but obviously we’ll have to wait for the beta launch to understand more about how this works.

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INFOGRAPHIC: The Current State Of Social Networks 2012

By Shea Bennett  at Media Bistro:
Did you know that Twitter is the social network with the strongest growth rate in 2012, ahead of LinkedIn, Pinterest and Reddit?

Facebook? That didn’t even make the cut. Still, when you’re closing in fast on one billion users, your annual growth rate does tend to slow down a smidgen. Still, don’t shed a tear for Mark Zuckerberg – save those for the owners of Digg, Bebo, Friendster and, of course, MySpace, who are the four social networks most in decline, reminding us that success in this space can be both dramatic and fleeting.

This data comes courtesy of Ignite Social Media, who have compiled the infographic of infographics about the state of social media, worldwide, in 2012. Ignite’s research revealed that while social media as a whole continues to plateau – we haven’t seen any real growth, planet-wide, since 2009 – there are many success stories to be found. Pinterest has quickly established itself as the de facto social network for women, and Plaxo (who knew that was still going?) is incredibly popular with senior citizens.

Check out all this, and more, in the visualization below.

INFOGRAPHIC: College Students & Social Networks

Published by Tunheim at Visual.ly:
Tunheim’s higher education/college marketing expertise has benefited the University of Minnesota, Hamline & Capella Universities, among many others. This Tunheim infographic explains how college students and colleges themselves are using social media.

INFOGRAPHIC: Who Likes What: Social Media By Demographic

By Sean Work, Via KISSmetrics:
Do you ever wonder what social networking sites you should be focusing your marketing efforts on?
This handy infographic breaks down the top social networking sites by gender, age, income, and education demographics. We also discuss the affinity score of certain keywords for a few social networking sites. The sites included in this graphic are Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon and YouTube. Click on the graphic below for an enlarged view.

About The Author: Sean Work is the marketing coordinator at KISSmetrics. Follow him on twitter (@seanvwork) and ask him for a free cup of coffee :)

by KISSmetrics.

INFOGRAPHIC: Users Spend More Time On Pinterest Than Twitter, LinkedIn And Google+ Combined

By Shea Bennett at Media Bistro:
Social pin-boarding site Pinterest is getting a ton of hype at the moment. It seems that every tech blog is waxing lyrical about Pinterest’s rapid ascent to 10 million uniques, the site’s broad appeal to female users and its traffic-driving power. Heck, even Mark Zuckerberg has signed up.
Lots and lots of hype. But is it deserved?
Well, here’s another pro-Pinterest stat: American users of the social network spend an average of 1 hour and 17 minutes on the site, well ahead of Twitter (36 minutes), LinkedIn (17 minutes) and Google+ (6 minutes). In fact, Pinterest gets more monthly usage than all of these other platforms combined.
Pinterest ranks behind Tumblr (1 hour and 38 minutes) and, no surprise, Facebook, whose 6 hours and 33 minutes average monthly usage is both incredible and unlikely to be caught anytime soon (read: years). In total, Americans spend a heady 100,000 years each month on Facebook, which is 50 times what they spend on Twitter.
One important thing to remember for Twitter fans: these numbers are (as usual) based on visits to Twitter.com, and won’t take into account Twitter client and app usage, which would significantly boost Twitter’s numbers, perhaps by twice as much.
Of course, Pinterest is a relative minnow compared to many of these other social networks. Its 12 million monthly unique visitors is beaten by every other major social network, including MySpace, whose recent uptick has kept them one million uniques ahead of Google+, while seeing double the monthly usage. You have to say, and despite the hype, Google+ doesn’t appear be taking off in the US. Which, inevitably and ultimately, will mean the world.
This data has been bundled together in this infographic from Statista, which takes a closer look at social networking in the United States.

INFOGRAPHIC: The History Of Social Media (1978-2012)

By Shea Bennett at Media Bistro:
Social media? That’s all Twitter and Facebook, right? And didn’t it start in the last few years?
Not so. Despite appearances, the history of social media traces back as far as the late 1970s, when computer hobbyists Ward Christensen and Randy Suess invented the bulletin board system (BBS). The launch of the Mosaic web browser in 1993 gave birth to the world wide web, and from here we never looked back. From Geocities and Blogger in the late 90s, through to Friendster and MySpace in at the turn of the millennium, the path to present day social stalwarts Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and the white-hot Pinterest, is littered with success and failure, innovation and disappointment.
This infographic takes a closer look at the history of social media, circa 1978-2012.

INFOGRAPHIC: The Social Universe With Numbers

Via Jess3: 
Everyone knows how popular social media sites are, but just how used are they. This infographic provides information for how many active users are on various social media sites to provide a big picture for the social media universe.

by JESS3 via

MySpace Goes Social With TV Experience

By Samantha Murphy at Mashable: 
Justin Timberlake just took the next step in his campaign to bring MySpace back. The pop super star and MySpace co-owner joined Panasonic on stage at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show to announce a new service that will make TV a whole lot more social.
Available on the next generation of Panasonic VIERA ConnectT-enabled HDTVs, an app called MySpace TV will allow viewers to see what their MySpace friends are watching, and enable them to make comments through the TV set and via smartphone and tablet devices.
The app will be available on Panasonic’s new HDTV line, as well as some devices created in 2010, via a software update.
Early channels on MySpace TV will focus on music, and then expand to movies, news, sports and reality channels.
“We see MySpace as a companion to what the social community is watching,” Marcus Liassides, executive VP of MySpace, told Mashable. “We plan to integrate the service with other social networks such as Facebook in the future too. But we aren’t trying to reinvent TV. We’re just evolving it and make it a shared experience even when you’re not in the same living room.”
Liassides said the experience will likely be optimized by viewers using tablets and smartphones. A companion apps will be available on tablets and smartphones.
“Why text or email your friends to talk about your favorite programs after they’ve aired when you could be sharing the experience with real-time interactivity from anywhere across the globe?” Timberlake said in a press release. “As the plot of your favorite drama unfolds, the joke of your favorite SNL character plays, or even the last second shot of your favorite team swishes the net, we’re giving you the opportunity to connect your friends to your moments as they’re actually occurring.”
Although the company hasn’t revealed when MySpace TV will become available, it’s expected to roll out in the first half of 2012. Liassides noted that it’s also working with other TV manufacturers to offer the app on other devices.
Will you use MySpace TV? Could this be the resurgence of MySpace? Can Timberlake bring it back? Let us know in the comments.

Justin Timberlake To Take Ownership Stake in MySpace

Today, we learned MySpace had been sold for $35 million to an advertising network called Specific Media. Now, the company says singer Justin Timberlake will take an ownership stake in MySpace and play a role in its future.
According to MySpace, we should know more about Specific Media’s and Timberlake’s vision for the the company later this summer.

Closing another chapter on one of the Internet’s most iconic properties, Myspace has been sold to to Specific Media, an advertising network, for $35 million.
Sources close to the situation said the deal is being completed today, although it has not been officially signed. Myspace’s owner, News Corp., will hold on to a very small stake of less than five percent.
[UPDATE: It's official; see the press release and memo to Myspace employees from outgoing CEO Mike Jones below.]