Myspace gives peek at website redesign

SAN FRANCISCO - Agence France-Presse

Timberlake's Myspace account appears in the new promo. Photo by Lionel Hahn/AbacaUsa.com

Myspace on Monday provided a glimpse at a major overhaul of the music-centric online community striving to reclaim lost glory.
 
A message atop the myspace.com home page promised: "Coming soon. The new Myspace," and provided a link to video showing a redesigned user interface that deeply integrates Facebook and Twitter.
 
"We're hard at work building the new Myspace, entirely from scratch," a message at the website said.
 
"But we're staying true to our roots in one important way -- empowering people to express themselves however they want," Myspace continued.
 
"So whether you're a musician, photographer, filmmaker, designer or just a dedicated fan, we'd love for you to be a part of our brand new community." Visitors could leave email addresses to be sent invitations to the redesigned Myspace service.
 
The pioneering online social network transformed itself into an Internet community for music lovers and makers after being eclipsed by Facebook.
 
Early this year, Myspace launched a new music player that it said attracted a flood of new fans.
 
Myspace is vying with hot Internet music services such as Spotify, Pandora, and Rdio as people increasingly go online for entertainment content. Myspace claims the largest library of online music with about 42 million tracks.
 
News Corp. sold Myspace in June for $35 million, just six percent of its $580-million purchase price, to Specific Media, a digital ad-targeting platform.
 
News Corp's purchase of Myspace in 2005 was a "huge mistake" and the social network was mismanaged "in every possible way" following the acquisition, chief executive Rupert Murdoch said at a shareholders meeting late last year.