The rise of the mobile Web and the explosive popularity of tablets have forced many websites to pursue an interface redesign that it optimized for the new gadgets. On Monday, Myspace, which faltered in recent years amidst the rise of Facebook, offered a preview of its new design under new ownership, and the refresh is quite ambitious.
If you can imagine what social networks like Google+ or even Facebook might look like in a year and half to two years, then you might begin to get an idea of what the aggressive new Myspace design looks like. If it needed to be summarized into a Silicon Valley-style new startup pitch, you could call the redesign Pinterest meets Facebook meets Twitter for music fans.
Purchased from News Corp. in 2011 for $35 million by Specific Media, Myspace’s new management includes CEO Tim Vanderhook, his COO brother Chris Vanderhook, and minority investor and pop superstar Justin Timberlake. Timberlake took to Twitter yesterday to reveal the video preview (below) of the new site, saying simply “This is Myspace.” The video was well received and soon had its own hashtag (#newspace) on Twitter as the public weighed in with mostly positive comments.
Although the new version of the site is still not open to the public, thus making the functionality displayed in the video more of an idea than a proven interface, the graphic-centric nature of the redesign is impressive. When users begin a search, their text input field becomes a giant headline on the site as real-time results show up underneath. Large photos uploaded by the user are interspersed with short Twitter-style messages (with comments) presented in a manner that would be rather familiar to Tumblr fans.
There are other visual elements in the revamped Myspace that present data in attractive ways, but perhaps the most interesting is a feature that appeared to be a Venn diagram showing the affinity percentage between a member’s interests and tastes and her Myspace friend connections. If all of these video features show up in the actual relaunch, the site is certain to have new fans based on interface design and data presentation alone.
Other than Timberlake’s Twitter message, there was little fanfare accompanying the relaunch video, possibly a nod to the new, subdued approach the team wants to assume as it attempts to re-inject the brand with the coolness that drained from the site years ago. On the preview site’s landing page, the team posted the following message, “We’re hard at work building the new Myspace, entirely from scratch. But we’re staying true to our roots in one important way—empowering people to express themselves however they want. 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.”
While the new look of the site could offer the Myspace faithful a chance to see their beloved site rise to prominence again, it will take more than a fresh coat of digital paint to recapture the momentum and popularity Myspace enjoyed before being surpassed by the Facebook juggernaut. Ironically, the major hurdle the site will probably need to overcome during its relaunch could be its very name. Internet history is fast and harsh, and in the annals of social-networking history, the Myspace name is almost a euphemism for “missed opportunity.” It could be argued that, had a startup with a different name revealed the same preview launch video, the positive reaction would be increased tenfold.
Myspace’s new owners, Timberlake included, are probably aware of this issue, and surmounting it will still present a significant challenge. However, if there was ever an Internet story poised for epic irony, it is one in which the guy who played Mark Zuckerberg’s Svengali as Sean Parker in the The Social Network returns to defeat Facebook in real life with a site many had left for dead. Stranger things have happened.
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