MySpace touts 1 million new users in last month
Launching the MySpace Music Player, the social-networking music site says it now offers more free music than any other site worldwide--thus users are streaming in.
Are things looking up for MySpace? First Justin Timberlake invests, and then it announces a MySpace TV partnership with Panasonic. Now it's claiming 1 million new users in the last 30 days, which adds up to 40,000 new sign-ups daily.
"The numbers tell an amazing story of strong momentum and dramatic change for MySpace," MySpace CEO Tim Vanderhook said in a statement, "and the 1 million-plus new user accounts we've seen in the last 30 days validates our approach."
Looking strictly at the numbers, MySpace is now claiming more music than the latest music streaming darling Spotify. With the new music player, MySpace says that it now features the largest online catalog of free music in the world with 42 million songs. As of July 2011, Spotify's catalog had around 15 million songs and as of February 2011 Pandora had 800,000.
The MySpace Music Player reportedly has unlimited and on-demand listening, radio modes, a recommendation engine, and Facebook integration. However, along with this music player, MySpace might also have Facebook to credit for bringing in new users.
According to The Guardian, MySpace's Facebook app, which lets users join directly via Facebook, went from 900,000 monthly active users in mid-January to 1.6 million users as of today.
MySpace was bought out in June for $35 million by digital media firm Specific Media, which is a fraction of the $580 million that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. paid for it in 2005. These new owners are said to be focusing more on music rather than purely social networking.
"MySpace is building meaningful social entertainment experience around content, where consumers can share and discover the music they love," Vanderhook said. "Consumers are getting excited about MySpace again--a testament to a great music product."