Reactions to MySpace's XShibuya Event

Dominic here.

Myspace  entered the Japanese market 2 and a half year sago in November 2006, and has been moderately successful. However over the past years, it is possible to see how Myspace Japan has begun to shrink from when it first entered (with great initial investment from LA Headquarters) to now. I had the chance to visit them at their beautiful Shiodome office just after they arrived in Japan; they were aggressive and eager to take on the reigning Japanese champion of Mixi. 2.5 years later, they've downsized into a smaller office removed from the offshoots Shibuya, due to what they claim as `A move to integrate ourselves away from the manufactures in Shiodome to the hustle of Shibuya`, an interesting claim to make as they had once shared a building with media giants like Yahoo! Japan and Softbank.



So, MySpace held an event last night event, entitled `コミュニティを創造するコンテンツーー注目アーティストと世界最大SNSのコラボ` to underscore how MySpace has been successful at attracting and maintaining musicians and their fans on their SNS. What was indicative of MySpaces evolution was how they continuously labeled themselves, orally and on print media, as an `Entrainment SNS`.  The artists they featured, both painters, were Yorke and Akira Osawa, who they claimed to be the types of creative professionals using MySpace with great success.

MySpace Promotion Director Mr. Saitou outlined the three promotion channels MySpace is using. 1) A magazine called MySpace From JP which essentially repackages online content coupled with interviews to print form, and it has achieved very moderate success according to his own account. 2) MySpace Cafes, where they have arrangements with 100 or so cafes in Japan that carry their logo, though the effectiveness of this type of promotion is harder to assess and 3) a radio program hosted by JWave called RadioxSpider.






Shack and I both had the impression however, that MySpace has some serious problems that it doesn't appear to recognize:

• Though MySpace has seen some rewards from their large investments in building communities around artists, it has left the individual user alienated as they try to navigate between different communities which are not their own. Further, MySpace has over commercialized their website to the extent that the degree of freedom to self express, which is more than most other SNSes with more relaxed HTML/CSS input, has been crushed by raging advertisements and in your face promotions of artists.
• Mr. Saitou made one of the most horrifying comments of the night by essentially defining Web 2.0 as "the ability to get products delivered to your door really fast, like Amazon." Shack and I were in bewilderment that he worked at one of the biggest social media companies in the world without understanding the basic tenants of the industry he was a part of. 
• The artists did not add much value to the event, at times they would make a statement that hurt MySpaces imagine. An example was: "MySpace doesn't really effect my sales." They had a moderate attitude about the event and MySpace, which turned off much of the audience, as sleeping audience members could be spotted at any given moment.
• The entire event held its focus more on where MySpace had come from, and hardly any talk of where it was going. A complacent attitude could be felt as statements like "I couldn't imagine something like MySpace 10 years ago" were repeated consistently. What happened to the MySpace of 2002 which was fighting vigorously like a web company should? I wonder if its organizational expansion and take over by News Corp has made it resemble a weighty, lethargic traditional media giant.
  

In all, the event did not reflect positively on MySpace. Users are increasingly turning away from MySpace for being messy, over-commercialized, and inattentive of users.

You can read a more positive review of the event from XShibuya, the hosts of the event.