MySpace Traffic Falls Off Cliff [CHART]
At SXSW, I had several very smart industry insiders tell me confidently that it's only a matter of time before MySpace makes a comeback. Judging from new traffic stas, the resurection better happen soon. According to Comscore, in one month between January and February of this year, worldwide unique visitors to MySpace fell a whoping14.4% from 73 million visitors to 63 million. That's just about half the visitors that the site had just one year ago. Here's a chart mapping MySpace's decline:
Conscore chart via Techdirt.
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…wow. But then, I think we all already knew the traffic chart was looking like this. I received my first MySpace friend request in months last week and literally did a double take. Ultimately, though, I didn’t even bother opening the email…
The fact that so many ppl are fleeing MySpace like this indicates a very real failure on their part to resonate as an understandable brand. I guess I just have a hard time digesting the site’s purpose now.
One thing’s for sure. A lot can be learned from MySpace’s epic decline.
It seems that myspace is at least 90% bands saying:
“Check out my music”, “Vote for my band”, “Join the mailing list”
It does become old fast. Facebook was a breath of fresh air because it’s people you know. I can’t imagine myspace surviving this decline.
Aaron Gibson
oh yeah, you can get free basscentric music at http://www.aarongibson.me
Billboard has a new insert in their magazine that supposedly lists the hot new uncharted artists–sort of a top 50 or so. Every single linking artist website is a MySpace page for these bands . . . So MySpace is still paying for this service. Our bands recently deleted all MySpace pages as no longer worth the time to keep up to date. We are focused on original band websites primarily, and then Facebook and Twitter.
Dave Clark
Clark Records
I got a kick out of how a friend of mind described myspace. “An old play ground, that only old creepy men hang out at now.” Cracks me up.
But seriously it is a bummer about myspace, they did have such a good thing. I dont anticipate myspace ever truly making a substantial comeback. In my opinion myspace should start filling out its will. “RIP myspace, its been real.”
Great comments, but I still advise a band to keep their MySpace page. Half the traffic is still a lot.
With various free or almost free tools, its also not that hard to keep tour dates and a bit of news updated. Maybe once every 60 days go and add a song or something else new…
Still seems worthwhile to me. Do you all disagree?
Don’t you think that it still makes sense to keep a simple MySpace page so that potential fans (those that still do trawl MySpace for music – and many do!) can find you?
As an active manager I still use it to check out bands. Not sure for how much longer but I wouldn’t ditch a simple EPK like presence on MySpace yet – although I’d focus all my efforts on my on site.
One thing that killed it for artists was the ditching of most of the search funtionality.
If I as a manager or promoter wanted to listen to bands that said they sounded like eg Zeppelin, I could – and I can’t now. One very good friend of mine found a multi-million selling artist by trawling dance artists on MySpace using the search function. He misses it!
Similarly, if a band wanted to search their local area for othre bands in their genre to hook up and do shows, mixtapes or split releases they could – and, as far as I’m aware, they can’t now.
So, keep a billboard up but don’t sweat it.
I think bands/artists are putting Myspace aside because it’s deemed ‘old hat’ and that’s not what one wants to be associated with. There are still many artists joining Myspace, problem is many are about 10 years behind the curve..
NO SHIT SHERLOCK!
What’s the point in bands supposedly promoting themselves to OTHER BANDS… rubbish site with rubbish results. Let it die. Myspace has been dead for a long time and the only people telling “artists” to keep the myspace are old dogs that aren’t learning any new tricks. Good luck.
Do artists / fans care that MySpace is owned by NewsCorp? Fox News? Do these issues matter to people that do not support Rupert Murdoch and his agenda? I hope they do, and I sincerely hope they are a reason for people’s exit.
MySpace is a ghost town, the audience that artists need to reach is no longer there. Musicians who need a free site would be better off putting their energy into a WordPress.com blog, because the day Murdoch realizes there will never be a profit the site goes up in smoke.
I still use MySpace to check out music from other artists- so yes, it’s serving as an EPK. I don’t pay attention to play counts/stats though.
I will say that since the integration of Reverbnation and MySpace, artists are sending (spamming) way too many messages that are most likely getting deleted or going unread. This feature would have been great about 2 years ago. Not sure that it’s having a positive impact today or just expediting their decline.
You seem to be laboring under the delusion there’s any alternative to Evil Money. You’re seeing only a fraction of the problem if you think Murdoch is even worth talking about.
Hey Hump Jones – Can you elaborate on that please? I’d like to hear your thoughts.
First layer: Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Stanley Hubbard, etc. — where are the Good Guys? Second layer: Capitalism itself is built upon pretending the extraction of resources is the “creation of value” and wealth itself is a social good, in the face of 300 years of American Evidence to the contrary. The nature of Commanding Heights allows these oligarchs to just buy out any competition and subvert any serious threats. Big Internets is insanely expensive — check out Tumblr’s monthly server bills — so any kind of social networking will involve Evil Money.
The only exception I can think of is Craigslist and they are literally under attack every day.
I personally am not a big fan of Myspace I find it a pain to use and set up let alone getting trolled by guys wanting relationships, even though I made a big note on my status about that! I joined primarily because of the music/bands that use that place, though I think they would be better served with their own websites or FB, Twitter, YouTube and linking.
Personally I think Myspace is on the way out.
How many of those sixty-three million Myspace visitors are actual individual users and how many of them are just bands that are considered account holders, users or visitors?
For my preferences, it took a long time for me to migrate from Myspace to Facebook. However, as of present, I prefer Facebook as opposed to Myspace not only for keeping in touch with personal contacts, but also for using the site as a primary resource for keeping current with bands and music artists.
I think Facebook’s interface and layout are aesthetically by far, more appealing in terms of visuals as well as “end-userability.” There’s also the integrity factor that Facebook has in that most account holders are real people…whereas Myspace now presently looks like one big database holding every known and/or unknown band out there.
How many visitors or account holders actually log into Myspace every day as well?
I expect the graph to continue declining for Myspace visitors and conversely expect more music artists to embrace Facebook as the primary source for digital promotion (with the exception of the music artist’s own website).
I agree with one previous post. There is the “creep” factor that stigmatizes Myspace’s credibility on some level.
Why in the world would you delete your artists myspace pages? It’s just moronic.. Link you’re artists Twitter to Myspace and never go there again but it makes absolutely no sense to delete your artists from myspace.
Artists are making the same mistakes they made with Myspace with Facebook. DON’T EXCLUSIVELY BUILD YOUR FANBASE ON SOMEONE ELSE’S DATA/PLATFORM!! Some kids are already moving away from Facebook to Twitter because it’s more mobile… Just do a search on Twitter and you’ll see what I’m talking about.. Pretty soon something will make more sense then Twitter… and so on and so forth.. It’s super easy to move your digital life.. You can setup a new account somewhere and invite all your friends within 5 minutes..
See my post below. My thoughts are yes, most definitely…a music artist can’t lose by keeping up with updates via Myspace. Somewhere, someone in the world will keep checking out Myspace.
In light of this article, I did log into Myspace for the first time in a couple weeks. The front home page today featured mainly a supermodel, a movie feature, only one music artist (Dr. Dre), organic living tips, etc. The site (Myspace) has so much going on, that at least in my opinion, it doesn’t really hit the mark on much of anything and instead, just gives us too much of everything.
Yeah, but you can stream via iTunes on fb. You can’t stream on Twitter.
Hump – while you seem to be relatively insightful, you have a very defeatist attitude. Unions are not dead, and there is tremendous opportunity to establish a sustainable music industry. The good guys are out there. Capitalism is trying to morph into something that is sustainable, and the plutocracy has not won (and yes,I follow the news).
Where should we build our fanbase? Email lists? Email are dying too!
don’t see why anyone is surprised. If and when facebook goes public and has to show a profit,the same thing will happen to them.Most people left Myspace because of the ads and the obnoxiously aggressive bands. NO ONE goes on social media sites to make purchases,and therein lies the problem. Murdoch tried to make a profit,but nobody on the site is buying anything. Advertisers on Facebook will do the same when they realize there’s no “click-throughs” to purchase products. Whether they want to admit it or not,Myspace and Facebook have the same business model as the newspapers:sell advertising. The newspapers aren’t doing so hot on that front,and the same goes for the “social” websites. NO ONE I know goes on Facebook to buy anything. Do you?