MySpace COO: Music deal spawned from user demands

Computerworld - MySpace.com's deal to join with three of the world's four largest music companies to create a joint service was prompted mostly by demands from many of the social network's 110 million users for the ability to download and buy music, concert tickets and other items, said Amit Kapur, MySpace's chief operating officer.

Announced today, the new MySpace Music service pairs the social network with Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, which are providing their entire music catalogs. Kapur declined to comment on why EMI Music, the fourth major record company, was not part of the announcement.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The joint venture -- which marks MySpace's first foray into selling products -- expands the social network's existing music platform to provide users with DRM-free digital music downloads, ad-supported audio and video streaming, a mobile phone storefront and a concert ticket sales office.

While Kapur didn't comment directly when asked if the deal signals that music labels are giving up their own services to instead align with distributors that resonate with buyers, he did say that people are experiencing music in a much more social way.

"They want their music and content online in an environment that is personal, portable and collaborative," he said. "That is what you get on MySpace. I can find the music that I want and share it with my friends. When I find a new song that I like, there is disconnect between listening to that song and purchasing it. [Users were saying] why can't I download a song or buy a concert ticket from your site. That was the inspiration."

The goal of the new venture is to build on the existing traffic and popularity of MySpace's existing music platform, which the company said now attracts 30 million unique visitors a month to hear music of 5 million artists. The service will integrate new content across the MySpace Music home page, the site's artist profile pages and individual MySpace user home pages to provide multiple opportunities to discover, share and purchase music for any device, the companies said.

"With these three leading companies, we are going to take what has been a rich and vibrant community on MySpace Music to the next level," Kapur said. "We want our music platform to be frictionless -- discovery, consumption and sharing of music will exist in one environment."

The new service lets users control their MySpace Music from their own home page by using enhanced search tools to create playlists and purchase music, MySpace said. At the same time, musicians can use the service to sell digital downloads, mobile ring tones and artist wallpapers directly from their artist profiles.