Myspace relaunched this week as an entertainment platform that now puts content, not people, center stage. Facebook, with its half billion registered users, may have won the race for social network dominance, but judging by this video tour of Myspace's new format, the site could reemerge as an online entertainment powerhouse.
Myspace's new multimedia platform is especially timely considering developments in transmedia entertainment, which breaks storylines into parts and artfully delivers them across multiple media channels. Viewers enjoy a rich and immersive experience when these channels converge, say on a dedicated website ... like the new Myspace. Mobile applications make it possible to view mashed up content on iPad and smartphones.
NBC's hit TV series Heroes is a model for transmedia storytelling, the central TV story made richer with sub-story lines streamed out using video/film, animation/graphic novels, games, music, twitter and forums, etc. – for convergence on the show’s website. MTV’s latest teen-thriller Savage County works much the same way.
If NBC and MTV can host transmedia on their own websites, can’t Myspace serve as a destination aggregator of transmedia productions and cross-media entertainment? It's an exciting thought.
Will commercial sponsors warm up to the new Myspace? Great content and a cleaner, safer social environment will surely help. So does the fact that Myspace still has 122 million registered users worldwide – plus, deep roots in Generation Y who are digitally adept and voracious consumers of entertainment and branded goods.
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