MySpace Music snags EMI, launches today

By Tim Conneally | Published September 25, 2008, 9:53 AM

Hands-on Review banner

Just as before, the site offers unlimited free streaming of content posted to an artist's profile. But now its system for playlist creation and purchase has improved, especially now that the fourth and final big label is secured.

Social Network MySpace has officially launched its music-dedicated portal after securing EMI as its final partner among the Big Four major labels.

Songs can be queued into the MyMusic Player in the user's profile, or be purchased if thusly enabled. In BetaNews tests this morning, we could find very few artists that had enabled "buy" links. Featured artists the Jonas Brothers, for example, have a player embedded on Myspace Music's homepage that links to Amazon's MP3 store, but in their related profile, song purchasing was unavailable.

MySpace Music   AmazonMP3 promptTracks that can be purchased directly in the MyMusic player feature an Amazon Logo. When clicked, the player opens a confirmation window and prompts for Amazon.com login information. From that point, it works exactly like Amazon's MP3 store, launching the download client and funneling the album or song into your player of choice.

MySpace has also partnered with Jamster, adding the "find ringtones" search directly to the MyMusic player.

The player can be accessed independently of a user's profile or popped out into its own window that includes artist updates and advertisements. The player draws a close parallel to Last.FM in the "social playlisting" aspect where playlists can be made publicly viewable, each list can include up to 10 songs. Users can browse their friends' playlists or those featured by MySpace, which currently includes MySpace President Tom Anderson's own (mystifyingly combining Pussycat Dolls and Alice Cooper), and one dedicated to MySpace's upcoming "Secret Shows."

MySpace Music's standalone player

The site's launch was briefly delayed, causing speculation that the immense project was under antitrust scrutiny. These rumors, MySpace told BetaNews earlier, were unfounded, though the company did not give any clue at the time to the reason for the delay. At the time, however, the service still only officially had three of the four major labels as participants. Today's MySpace Music launch announcement simultaneously served to announce that straggling major EMI had joined the project.

Comments

View comments by with a score of at least

Still exists!
Its name is "Space Jammer" and it plays MySpace music and creates playlists.
You can buy the music you are listening to directly out of the program at amazon, musicload, 7digit, cd-baby or iTunes (vers. 1.4). You also can watch videos of the bands, send comments to them and much more. The program is freeware and available at:

www.spacejammer.com

Score: 0

|

MySpace and music? I'd rather let Al Queda distribute my work thanks.

Score: 0

|

What? So you don't like 14 year olds? ...and 60 year olds posing as 14 year olds?

I mean, hey, you frequent this site!
;-)

Score: 0

|

Yes, but at least this site wasn't put together by a 14 year old!

Score: 0

|

You're thinking of Facebook.

Score: 0

|

My apologies. Chimps did Myspace, I forgot.

Score: 0

|

Google Chrome 4: Yes, it's fast, but is it usable?

As Betanews readers have responded to our stories about Chrome's JavaScript superiority...Does that mean we'd actually use this browser? Well...

Video: Netflix on PlayStation 3

Netflix has come to the PlayStation 3 via Blu-ray and BD-Live.

Verizon Wireless launches new Android, Chocolate, and ruggedized phones

The lower-priced Eris joins the Droid, while the Chocolate gets a touchscreen and more music playback.

Early sales figures for Windows 7 nicely high, but do we know why?

Fans of triple-digit surges in figures quoted by Betanews will love this one, as it appears Microsoft rediscovered how to pull off a software launch.

Myka announces its latest Linux-based 'net top box'

Myka's ION brings Boxee, XMBC, and much more to HDTVs.

What hath Mac wrought? A remembrance after a quarter-century

The reason there's a Macintosh today is not because of some brilliant flash of engineering genius, but because Apple had the audacity to learn from its mistakes.

Early build of Moblin 2.1 improves connectivity, but not device support

The Linux Foundation's Atom-centric OS yesterday received a major overhaul with the project release of Moblin 2.1 for netbooks and nettops.

The iPhone's China syndrome: Sales of 5,000 and climbing

There's actually a country where Apple's device is not a godsend, where sales can be measured in the dozens.

New European counterpart to FCC will ensure 'a more neutral net'

Late Thursday night, the ruling telecom administrators of the EU's member nations signed away their final authority to a new entity overseen by the EC.

Sophos study suggests Windows 7 UAC's default setting is self-defeating

Without any anti-virus installed, a Sophos test showed, User Account Control was only capable of thwarting just one malware package out of ten samples chosen.

Indiscreet tweet trips awareness of Web SSL vulnerability

A group of high-level security engineers had been making progress on thwarting a low-level threat to the Web, until somebody blurted it all out on Twitter.