The next MySpace?


Today, the AP reports that MySpace is licensing technology from Gracenote to prevent users from uploading third-party copyrighted music: MySpace Music Move.
Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that teens are already over MySpace and ready to move on to the next big thing. In Teens’ Web World, MySpace Is So Last Year.
As someone who uses MySpace as a music discovery site, I’d love to see something that combines the streaming music and social networking aspects of MySpace with better playlist creation features.
If you go to a MySpace music page and enjoy the first track, you have to then click on each subsequent track in order to listen. Instead, imagine a service where you can queue up a playlist of all of the tracks posted by all the musicians who are your friends and listen through. Or, you can create a playlist of one of your friend’s musician friends or on all of the musicians connected to you within 2 degrees. Add in podcast-type delivery and notification of updated songlists, and you’ve got a great music discovery service. Throw in a way to convert listening into purchases and you’ve got a winning service right there.
Let’s see who is already doing this.
Last.fm is probably the most popular music recommendation service, but it looks more to peer recommendations than to explicit social connections. Pandora looks at qualities of the music, rather than the social aspect.
Mog is a music-focused social networking site, but it seems to only lean in the direction of playlisting. For example, here’s David Lowery on Mog.
MyStrands combines listening histories and peer recommendations. They seem to be doing a lot with recommendation technology and look worth taking a closer look at…

Andrew Raff @andrewraff