Timberlake to bring Myspace back

By Ross Hettel

That ad-ridden website from the early 2000s is making a comeback. The one with the garish layouts designed by 13 year olds.

No, no, not Geocities. MySpace.

After being bought out by Justin Timberlake and friends in June, the granddaddy of the social media websites is trying to change its game. Gone are the profiles of tweens and spam bots, now MySpace seems to be trying to elbow its way into the social music scene with its sights set on Spotify.

Perhaps Timberlake had so much fun portraying Sean Parker in The Social Network he decided to try out being an Internet entrepreneur in the real world. The weird coincidence is that the real Sean Parker is playing for Team Spotify.

Expect a movie about this in three years with a soundtrack from Trent Reznor.

MySpace has even made up with the rival that led to its demise, Facebook. As evidenced by a “Connect with Facebook” button on MySpace’s main page – who could have predicted that? – they are now happy to coexist with one another.

The biggest news from a recent press release is that the site just launched its new streaming music player, boasting a library of 42 million songs. All you Spotify users who get frustrated when you can’t find your favorite rare Pixies B-side, there’s a reason why: your library of choice only has a measly 15 million songs.

Also mentioned: MySpace is increasing in size, with up to 40,000 new user sign-ups per day. No word yet on if those new users are 18-year-old blondes who are “new to this whole Internet thing, and just looking for a few casual friends.” And your credit card number.

Lane Parsons, sophomore percussion performance major and drummer for Winnie Page and the Dirt Band, shares the same frustration with the lack of music on Spotify. He said he can’t find the music he wants “one out of every three of four times.”

Would a music library almost 3 times as big as Spotify’s enough for Parsons to switch?

As he put it, “Hell yeah!”