How to kill MySpace.... any Irish bands want to help?

Today looks like turning into another OPML day but yesterday's launch of SYO seems to have inspired alot of great ideas and hacks.

Tom Morris in particular is firing in all cylinders and after sharing a script for per-feed privacy options yesterday he's talking about a way of killing MySpace today -

On the right hand side, I've got a Grazr box, which links through to the websites of a handful of (mostly) independent artists. This could quite easily replicate the functionality that MySpace is providing for artists.

It requires Grazr to simply tweak the rendering process for OPML. We need a method by which if one links to an MP3 in an outline, it'll bring up a flash player, as it does for podcast.

This is a terrific idea but here's the clincher -

Then we could use technology similar to Share Your OPML to aggregate music tastes. Perhaps share.opml.org/music...

Wow, so we could use Attention metrics to bubble up our own music chart just as SYO now derives a Top 100 Feeds Chart. Tom's laying the groundwork for a distributed (edge) version of MySpace, an OurSpace if you like.

Does anyone know of Irish bands with freely playable MP3 on their sites? Why would any band want to help kill MySpace? Because its a friggin mon(ster)opoly that's why! As Tom says, "It's time we produce an open source version".

BTW, I've added Tom's OPML to my Grazer Blades (used to be called blogrolls) in the Grazr panel at left.


Technorati Tags: opml, myspace, grazr

Comments

[Damien Mulley]

Get real. MySpace killer! How many times have we heard that now? You cannot and will never be able to use a nerd tech solution to change a social phenomenon. Ease off the opmlViagra before you poke each others eyes out.

[Brian Greene]

Why kill myspace? coz itz owned by newSINternational ?
myspace worx. it really worx 4 artists, an open source version wud B gud, bring it on. MURDocH spent half a billion on it and according to Radio 4 / BBC newspod yesterday the trick is that it has 152Million pre installed demographically known eyeballs (76 million users x 2 eyeballs each). But the AD return is not there yet, so what, NewSin.. can roll it at a loss.. for a while.

Offline I can advise you of some Irish MP3s that cud be used or take a listen to the Irish Music Podosphere as a lot of that type of MP3 could move freely as it is unsigned and not published. (Ask artist first)

[James Corbett]

I don't think its an outlandish notion at all Damien. I'm not saying OPML is how it will happen but do you really think MySpace is invincible and here to stay?

Where's Netscape now, where's Excite, where's Altavista, where's GeoCities, where's Friendster etc, etc? Not every social phenomenon had the pedigree to last. And my money's on MySpace to go have withered away within 2 years. Want to bet on it? Isn't there a place on the net where people can make these kind of mutual prediction wagers?

That's the spirit Brian! I'm emailing you now. How about adding a Grazr panel to your blog? :-)

[Damien Mulley]

Netscape is a browser. Excite and Altavista are search engines. Geocities is part of Yahoo and has 10s of millions of pages. It didn't actually disappear.

Using Netscape and two search engines to predict the failure of MySpace is like trying to predict the lotto numbers using the results of the 1966 World Cup.

In comparison terms, Friendster is a bit more like it but while both utliize social networks, mySpace is massively different. I'd suggest reading Danah Boyd's paper on why Friendster died and why mySpace worked.

OPML will not kill mySpace as you suggested in your title and post. Maybe something better will come along and gain ground or surpass mySpace but this OPML hack will not be it.

[James Corbett]

Of course, a single hack won't accomplish much but the combination of dozens of hacks can and will do an awful lot. OPML will provide a framework for many.

The big news on TechMeme today is Warner Brothers' decision to sell movies and TV shows using BitTorrent. Dave Winer is a big fan of that protocol and you can tell he's going to bootstrap BitTorrent-enclosure based podcasting. We'll soon see BitTorrent podcatchers showing up and Feed aggregators and grazers will also support it.

Edgeio points to how we can use the combination of distributed blogging networks and social tagging to decentralize a marketplace. It won't overtake eBay today or tomorrow but the momentum in the direction of microformats/structured-blogging, social tagging, P2P distribution (BitTorrent), etc, all point towards an inescapable reality of the internet - if information wants to be free, the internet wants to be distributed. Not just in terms of hardware but so also in terms of software.

Look at the typical blog - its not a single discrete entity but an amalgamtion of numerous different services and elements all pulled together on-the-fly to give the illusion of a single 'destination' - widgets, feedburners feeds, stats, flikr photos, playlists, affiliate programs, adsense adverts, revvr videos, etc, etc.

MySpace will continue to be a blogging service but it won't be the center of the universe. Blogging + RSS evened the playing field in terms of online publication. OPML will take that to the next level.

[Ken McGuire]

Now this one has certainly got my attention! I for one will give up a few mp3s :)

[James Corbett]

Excellent Ken, very much appreciated! So we'll get to hear some of Happy Medium's stuff then? Cool.

And how about adding a Grazr to your blog too? Or am I being greedy now ;-)

[Brian Greene]

if OPML succeeds myspace it will not be for reasons of technology. We TXT, but we don't TXT coz some boffin invented SMS. SMS was a engineering textual report back channel for GSM field trials... for every technology there is a more successful misuse.

I interviewed James at the Blog Awards, not sure if the feed ever got released on podcasting.ie, but I asked some really odd questions, like will OPML organise my TV viewing.... I saw a glimpse of the future today thanks to james. Forget source view OPML forget Readers; that all has to be far away in the background. give it good design, ajaxian tools, ala protogage.com and make it viral.

MySpace is somewhat successful as it embodies non tech secret ingredients, like "we all need to be part of a social group" church / school / club / or BeBo and second, we get of on referrals, making them and getting them. For too long, a DJ on national radio has told us the top 40 we need to listen too. The sky has fallen down on that model. Podcasting ain't about tech, its hype is driven by passionate new content and the lowering of the access barrier to the radio industry. Tipping songs, ala "I think you'll like this" is not for a few aging gents in RTE radio centre anymore.

Now if an OPMLspaced, dare I say "PORTAL" can organised your lists and your friends lists better than current myspace then OPML will win. If you think a re-write of Myspace based on OPML would be better than current My-WALLED-GARDEN-space then OPML will win. genie is out of the bottle.

[James Corbett]

This article from Wharton, entitled "MySpace, Facebook and Other Social Networking Sites: Hot Today, Gone Tomorrow?" makes an interesting follow on to the above dicussion -

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1463.cfm

"Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader agrees that social network sites are powerful, but mercurial, particularly since most are aimed at teenagers and young adults. "It's a complete crap shoot. Look how many of these have come along and how many were touted as the next big thing. How many have disappeared completely or find themselves in some strange little unexplainable niche?"

[Tom Morris]

MySpace is a temporary phenomenon. People will grow out of it and they'll want their data out. This little plan won't just make MySpace disappear in a puff of smoke by next Wednseday. We're playing the five year game.

MySpace can be competed with (and no doubt someone at Google or Yahoo have got their eyes open for the opportunity to do so), but what we build here cannot be uninvented.

I'll have some new stuff to show this week.

[Justin Mason]

A big problem with self-hosted MP3s is bandwidth; it can cost money. skinnyCorp's "15 megs of fame" -- http://15megsoffame.com/ -- works well as a result.

FWIW, a note to bands/DJs: I know most of the mp3blog community _hates_ Myspace's streaming music player with a vengeance, and prefers to hype bands that offer MP3s for download. Don't drink Murdoch's kool-aid ;)