• Average audience is younger and less affluent, and thereby not as valueable for brands
• More users than Twitter, although they’re less active than Facebook users
• users spend less time on the site than other social media
• Privacy controls are much more robust for personal users.  In many ways, Myspace allows users to control their privacy better than Facebook

As you might expect, Many of my friends had questions about why I would even want to join Myspace again:

I never got into MySpace because I never knew anybody on there. I’ve always had lots of friends on Facebook. What’s strange is that those two are about staying connected w/ ppl you already know. Twitter has been about making new friends. – Michael Calhoun

…Why? – Chris Maue

Don’t do it! – Steve Petersen

Why would you ever leave Myspace - Lost Plum

Hey I’m never on here…so I’ll see you on fb! – Anonymous friend

Some of my old friends who remained on Myspace were also curious why I would join, so I shared a short essay explaining my reasoning.

In online marketing it is most important to meet your audience where they are, rather than where you want them to be.  I’ve been asked if Twitter is merely  a platform for broadcasting narcissism, what the ROI value of a Facebook fan is, and that blogs are just a ruse for stay-at-home moms to get free products.  While using of social media as a tactic varies based on the strategic goals of each client, I invariably must explain that they can use these tools to listen to consumers and learn from what works (and what isn’t) to improve their business, and not just to improve their reputation.  There’s also a first mover advantage for brands who are able to master social media before their competitors, often winning devoted brand advocates who will benefit word-of-mouth discussion for years to come.

I believe the best way to understand new media is to try it for yourself, which is why I have profiles on hundreds of social media websites.  While I may use some networks more actively than others, it’s still important to open yourself to new ideas to best understand what makes them useful or valuable.  Only through my own trial of these media, some of which failed or no longer exist, was I able to appreciate their potential – which saves my clients investing their time on platforms that won’t help meet their goals.  So ultimately I had little choice as a professional to stop worrying and join Myspace.

In the past the music industry has relied on taste makers such as DJs, critics, and marketers to help introduce new music to would be record buyers (or downloaders).  However over the last decade Opinion Leaders, those most influential individuals in your social network, have played the most important role; think of these people as your friend who is usually the first to introduce you to a band that you go on to love.

Online these opinion leaders have started popular music blogs, their influence measured by their expertise within genres and their appeal within their blogging audience.  Offline these taste-makers usually have the largest music collection among your friends, and they make frequent recommendations that are just for you.  Opinion leaders are the arbiters of new music in a marketplace no longer limited by the label-centered distribution, serving agenda setting roles with their personalized recommendations that mirrors the shift from mass-media driven popular music (radio, Rolling Stone, MTV) to online distribution meant for niche fans and private listening (iPods and YouTube).

As our experience with music increasingly takes place in social media, the relationship between opinion leaders and their social networks shifts significantly.  While I’m still taking recommendations from my friends, chances are you’ve tried using a peer-recommendation website of your own, such as Last.fm or Pandora.  The former, Last.fm is a service I’ve been using for over 4 years (then known as Audioscrobbler), has tracked over 20000 songs played on my computer and iPod.  In return for music listening data CBS (who owns this social network) can use, I get personalized recommendations from my friends and musical “neighbors” along with occasional suggestions from Last.fm .  This hybrid of the opinion leader model with the narrowcast of media distribution is actually quite seamless, if not organic at the consumer level.

On the other hand is the model of Pandora, the popular free* streaming music service which uses analytics and social ranking to make its music recommendations.  Pandora remains extremely popular service**, although I should admit that I am relatively new to the experience of tuning into user created “stations”, in which individuals do not control playlists but can configure them through a thumbs up/down rating system.  Many consumers rave of the recommendations this analytic system can provide, and I must admit I have been turned on to some music that was outside my sphere of influence otherwise.  However Pandora doesn’t always provide the high quality recommendations one might expect from an opinion leader; although the site offers the ability to skip songs you don’t like, it must limit the number skipped tunes before it forces one to listen through the entire song.

Opinion leaders play the most significant role in sharing music outside these two social networks, where music sharing is changing as quickly as the rest of social media.  Leading the charge are sites like Blip.fm and 8tracks that allow these Opinion Leaders become would be DJs for their friends, publishing playlists and sharing individual tracks with friends on Twitter and other social networks. Meanwhile Myspace remains a significant place for new bands to break their music to a wide audience, albiet Opinion Leaders sharing music through their own profile page cater to a much smaller social network than earlier.

This list of music sharing services  is hardly definitive, since music tastes are as diverse as the communities of fans who listen to them.  Although it’s hard to predict exactly how people will listen to music or using what online services, it is clear that Opinion Leaders will continue to play their significant role in influencing their network of friends.