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Myspace previews complete redesign
- kyt 14y agoToo little, too late. Their brand is tarnished forever and they'll never recover.
- wmeredith 14y agoBullshit. Go ask a twelve year old who's going to start creating their online persona this year what Myspace is. They won't know what you're talking about.
- thom 14y agoThat seems like a problem too, though.
- astrodust 14y agoThen their eighteen year old brother will flick them in the ear and call them a loser and a noob and they'll quickly learn.
- zalzane 14y agoWhen you were 12 years old, did you go out of your way to tell your parents/brother that you had a myspace?
- astrodust 14y agoMySpace was an exclusive club for "99-year old girls" to fawn over their favorite bands, or for older boys boys to post pictures of "hot babes" to impress others in their age group. I'm not sure it ever matured from there.
- skeletonjelly 14y agoLucky teenagers don't revolt anything their older peers tell them as fact ;)
- hnriot 14y agosoon it will have retro caché
- guylhem 14y agoLike an aol.com email address?
- dholowiski 14y agoI think this is actually possible. Aren't we all tired of Facebook and twitter, and waiting for the next big thing?
- antihero 14y agoMeh, the kids won't care. If some popular people use it because it's way more fun and exciting than shitty old Facebook, (plus they hear the odd story about how fun the old MySpace was) then it could get it's foot in the door.
- anotherblue 14y agoJudging by displayed design, it definitely feels more fresh than Facebook and Twitter. I see strong influence of Microsoft's metro design language as well...
- antihero 14y agoMeh, the kids won't care. If some popular people use it because it's way more fun and exciting than shitty old Facebook, (plus they hear the odd story about how fun the old MySpace was) then it could get it's foot in the door.
- prebrov 14y agoHistory has some examples of legacy brands being revived. Mini, Hush Puppies, Pabst Blue Ribbon are some of the known examples. Forever and never is a really long time. Being on the edge but akin to old school is actually valued in music subculture. So while Facebook becomes a tired commodity, MySpace does have a shot in getting back as a 'true skool' brand for a music social network. Think of hip crowd looking back at the 80s and 90s for inspiration.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- benguild 14y agoWhoa.
- bicknergseng 14y agoNo kidding. Gonna take me some time to grok this one. My immediate reaction from only the video is that it looks beautiful but far more complicated than FB or G+ or something. Still, remarkable transformation.
- mitjak 14y agoDoes anybody except for musicians use Myspace still? Regardless of the answer, I'm still not sure why artists would continue using myspace in the first place.
- lancebailey 14y agoArtist go where the fans are ... Last checked, they aren't on myspace, And most likely this redesign will not change that fact. Also, when was the last time you heard a artist give out the myspace page during and interview?
- glenntzke 14y agoThis honestly makes me glad I regained access to my Myspace account and I'm looking forward to trying it out with my bands' pages. I can't think of anyone (bands included) actively touting their Myspace pages but it looks like JT's influence in the company may pay off afterall.
- ary 14y agoMyspace previews design concept video. I'll believe this interface in a browser when I see it. That said, it's a nice concept.
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoIn a desktop browser? I can believe it. It's the Pinterest interface except horizontal. I see gradients, html5 video, opacity, position fixed. The only unbelievable thing about this video is the lack of loading time to load any content.
- canistr 14y agoPinterest for Windows 8 Metro?
- htmltablesrules 14y agoExactly what I was thinking.
- pawelwentpawel 14y agoSo now everything that is aligned in a grid is a Pinterest interface?
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoIt's not a grid...
- pawelwentpawel 14y agoI meant the profiles sections - latest, mixes, connections etc.
- mertd 14y agoTo me, Pinterest interface means random pictures and captions displayed in arbitrary sizes and order. When watching the preview video, the first thing I thought was "horizontal Pinterest".
- robryan 14y agoNothing to lose I guess. Looks to have some interesting ideas.
- jrajav 14y agoFirst thought: Ruh-roh, someone caught a bit of the Metro square-spam fever. Second thought: ... Okay, I might be a little bit excited to see how this plays out. (Particularly like the searching ideas.)
- iamben 14y agoThe preview looks great. I just don't understand why anyone would come back to something they've already moved on from to do things they're already doing elsewhere. That said, I genuinely wish them the best of luck! :-)
- espadagroup 14y agoIt's all about focusing on the creative producers, Facebook still isn't the best place for those types, it's good because that's where fans are but it's not really the best tool.
- iamben 14y agoSure, I get that. But most of the people I know in bands use something else - bandcamp,soundcloud, whatever. Those who listen are using spotify, grooveshark, rdio, whatever. Photographers use flickr, instagram, designers use dribbble, etc etc. My friends all chat on facebook, twitter or g+ - the list goes on. It's great that they're trying - I used to love MySpace! But I can't see why anyone would choose to go back when other services are doing it better and your friends, family, colleagues and celebrities (and where appropriate fans and audiences) are there already. I hate being negative about it, and I really look forward to trying it - they just have a long road ahead.
- anjc 14y ago"""But most of the people I know in bands use something else - bandcamp,soundcloud, whatever. Those who listen are using spotify, grooveshark, rdio, whatever. Photographers use flickr, instagram, designers use dribbble, etc etc. My friends all chat on facebook, twitter or g+ - the list goes on.""" Does it not seem though that this redesign seems to be hitting the middleground of this cluster of services? It seems like this could be a very relevant move for Myspace when, as you say, most people use either soundcloud or grooveshark or instagram or tumblr or facebook or etc etc. This redesign, even if it is a concept, seems to touch upon all of these. Which mightn't attract hardcore users who need flickr or bandcamp, but it might attract everyone else who wants to need all the above. I dunno, it all seems very relevant to me.
- jaredcwhite 14y agoSocial networking completely rethought in 2012 design language. I like it.
- jrajav 14y agoWhat Microsoft would like 2012 design language to be, at least.
- espadagroup 14y agoI'm actually pretty impressed with this both in their direction and design. Focusing on the creative producers was what they should have done in the first place.
- syassami 14y agoMy thoughts exactly, this is something very refreshing/futuristic and after showing to friends who are both artists/non-artists they love the new UI. Congrats myspace.
- chrisacky 14y agoJust watched the video [1] in entirety. One point, you can tell this is a total work in progress/concept, and that the UI is also most likely staged at this point. (I make this observation based on the fact that every post had "12 Connects", "3 Comments" and "2 Shares". Surely if you put this much effort into production of a video you would change these numbers?) Anyway, features which I picked up from the video... - Photo Sharing/Uploading - Heavy Emphasis on Music - Insights/Stats for presumably Bands - Radio - Some weird feature called "affinity" that matches your online identity to Justin Timberlake? In the final shot, It also looked like Instagram filters were applied to every profile picture? As expected, MySpace is clearly placing a heavy emphasis on a community driven around bands and music. But, I just fail to see how they are going to get a strong user base, just considering most/all bands are content and happy with Facebook and integration with the vast supply of Band Related apps... [1] https://new.myspace.com/play https://new.myspace.com/play
- estel 14y agoThe use of horizontal scroll in the video is probably some way from fully refined too - there was no obvious chrome to facilitate the panning, which doesn't often work well outside of touch devices.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago> (I make this observation based on the fact that every post had "12 Connects", "3 Comments" and "2 Shares". Surely if you put this much effort into production of a video you would change these numbers?) I don't think it says that all. The last thing I do when designing a page is hook it up to a data source. Nothing in this video looks that difficult to implement. Difficult to make cross-browser compatible, most likely.
- anjc 14y agoAm i wrong in saying that Myspace seemed to stay relevant for longer than it possibly should have purely because musicians and bands seemed to have an affection for it, for whatever reason? I know that even up until recently, when i've searched for local musicians, their Myspace page is still very high in search rankings, and i still often (somehow) find myself listening to local band's music via Myspace. If they're going to put a focus in any area, for a redesign, it seems like music is the ticket. As far as website designs go, this preview is stunning, even if it is just a mockup.
- joshmattvander 14y agoI am actually curious and almost excited to see this come to life. But one mistake they are making IMO... Sticking with the MySpace branding.
- KaoruAoiShiho 14y agoAudio pinterest, sweet!
- alid 14y agoI agree! And the mixes feature looks cool. They're definitely plugging a gap in the music market.
- nostromo 14y agoIf this was billed as "FooBar: Justin Timberlake's new music social network" I would have signed up for an invite instantly. However, "sign up for an invite to MySpace" seems uncompelling. It'll be just as hard for them turn around the name MySpace as it would be for a night club that has become passe. (Maybe it's just me... I also signed up for an invite to WireDoo.)
- grandalf 14y agomyspace is now a retro brand, isn't it? Those who never left will be like the people who stuck with Apple through system 7.5.x through 9.x...
- Apocryphon 14y agoSame with the new Digg.
- connortomas 14y agoI tentatively disagree. If the service isn't leaps and bounds ahead of the competition, I think this could be a huge flop. However, if they can actually deliver, I can imagine this generating a huge amount of interest. "The return of MySpace" is a fairly compelling story, after all - if they pull it off.
- jmohsenin 14y agoCan't believe they spent all this time on a desktop redesign. Should have done mobile-first.
- aelaguiz 14y agoThis excites me. I would love to see some serious heat in the social networking space, some competition might break the innovation logjam. We can stop competing on how many people can fit in one vid chat and start actually adding some value again. Here's hoping there is an app eco-system with serious social channels for mobile.
- xpressyoo 14y agoLove the "subliminal" soundtrack of the preview "[...] If you break my heart a 2nd time ..."
- GuruShastry 14y agoWhere it says "Paris" on the photo album, its actually a photo from Berlin.
- VeejayRampay 14y agoWe need a million more social networks.
- joshmattvander 14y agoNot a million... Just 5
- joss82 14y agoWrong choice of word on the front page. They told the most numerous user that she is ""just"" a fan.
- canistr 14y agoThe sideways scrolling seems awkward for desktop-use with mice. I'd imagine it's more of a tablet-centric app that is Windows 8-metro inspired.
- binarysolo 14y agoReminds me of similar design sensibilities to Microsoft Windows 8 (Metro). Is this kinda stuff in vogue these days?
- jitl 14y agoYeah. I'm a UI Designer and I really like the aesthetics of this sort of interface, although I'm not totally on-board on reducing the total content on-screen in favor of endless scrolling GIGANTIC TEXT and images.
- mratzloff 14y agoIt's good for browsing but terrible for finding something specific, which is why it's a good interface for Pinterest and a terrible interface for Windows 8. It's probably a good interface for MySpace 2.0.
- warfangle 14y agoThe big thing about it is the horizontal scrolling.. that works really well on an ipad, but not so well on the screen. This is definitely a tablet-oriented design ...
- timfrietas 14y agoCan you explain more why? My monitor is 16:9, my iPad home button suggests is should be held 3:4, and at best is 4:3, which is not as well suited for side scrolling as modern monitors, which are wider than they are tall.
- warfangle 14y agoIt's as big of an issue on my OSX touchpad devices, as I can scroll sideways with the same gesture I use to scroll vertically. But on any device where my primary HCI device is a mouse, it requires finding the horizontal scrollbar and click-dragging it. It's also not typically what people expect out of a website outside of the touch realm, which breaks a pretty primary rule in UI design (don't present the user with something they don't expect).
- aw3c2 14y agoLatest Opera and I get insulted: Not so fast! Our superpowers have detected you're using an outdated browser. That must mean: a You don't use the Internet very often. b You're at your parents' place on the PC they bought in 1996. c You work for the government or a big corporation. There's still hope. If you answered a or b, all you need to do is click on one of the beautiful icons below, follow the instructions and you'll be enjoying the new Myspace in a jiffy.
- jacobr 14y agoWorks fine when you "Identify as Firefox"
- jarek 14y agoYeah, "d - You don't usually jump through hoops to get a demo website working in your perfectly capable browser" must have been left off the list accidentally.
- mibbitier 14y agod) You use a non-standards compliant odd-ball browser such as Opera, which is used by around 700 people globally.
- phene 14y agoNice try, News Corp. Wherever you are, relevance will depart.
- pawelwentpawel 14y agoReally nice concept. I liked the map especially. I wonder about the navigation - it would be probably cool to include a lot of keyboard shortcuts scrolling up and down. Imagine if facebook would suddenly come up with a such a drastic redesign. Half of the users would probably have no idea what is happening.
- brador 14y agoLooks like the new digg but with side scrolling...
- viraptor 14y agoI'm surprised the TV part didn't get advertised yet. It's probably the most exciting part of their new service, but so far they're keeping it pretty quiet (apart from places where they try to recruit new people). If they can pull off all the changes: metro ui, new pinterest-style network, music distribution, tv integration... this may be an interesting time for Facebook.
- lordlarm 14y agoAs a computer scientist and an Opera user this actually insults me: http://i.imgur.com/7k0bN.png http://i.imgur.com/7k0bN.png Ironically Opera was the one who proposed the <video>-tag which this site uses for it's rotating LP, in 2007. [1] Way to exclude users. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video#History_of_.3Cvideo.3E_element http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video#History_of_.3Cvideo...
- artursapek 14y agoI hate it when design agencies try this hard to be cool.
- webXL 14y agoOr just try. Go do something else if you're not.
- joshryandavis 14y agoTheir audience is people who still use Myspace.
- DigitalSea 14y agoI'll pass on your humbling words to the design team, I'm sure they'll appreciate your words. They put a lot of hard work into the redesign, they're not trying to be anything. What you see is a refreshing take on a social site and although I am biased because I work for the agency that designed (as a developer) it doesn't take a designer to see this is the best MySpace has ever looked. It's condescending comments like these that give HN a bad name. Let me know when you redesign a large social site like MySpace and then we'll talk.
- palderson 14y agoAn interesting note to this is that there weren't any ads on the site, which is not a surprise given it's a promo video. However, given the vertical and horizontal scrolling, there's not really any way to include static sidebar ads the way Facebook does. It'll be interesting to see what they do around advertising on the site.
- twodayslate 14y agoLooks very metro.
- thecoffman 14y agoThis seems like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic...
- astrodust 14y agoMySpace is already at the bottom of the ocean collecting barnacles. This is an effort to salvage the wreck.
- mratzloff 14y agoThey've been working on this for awhile. I interviewed at Myspace about 3 years ago (mostly for the hell of it) and they were talking about the foundation for this interface. Their back end, from what I could tell, was a mess: C#, Ruby, Java, PHP, some ColdFusion still around... These poor guys were working long hours. There were hundreds of employees, but they couldn't turn Myspace into something that 5 talented guys could make in 6 months. It was clear to me that there were a lot of politics lurking just beneath the surface.
- Zimahl 14y agoYikes, 3 years? From scratch is where they needed to start from and it sounds like they couldn't pull the trigger until recently. FWIW, I think the interface looks great. However, I'm definitely not the target audience - I'm not young, nor hip, nor am all that into music. I have however done my share of user interaction and development and it seems cool AND functional, which is quite a feat in itself.
- robryan 14y ago3 years back would have been before the last redesign, which didn't do a lot to improve their fortunes.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- rudog 14y agoI can assure you whatever position you were interviewing for 3 years ago, it wasn't for this. That was most likely for the previous reskin they did a few years ago. The frontend / backend was completely rewritten over the course of this year, throwing out most of everything from the old site.
- nashequilibrium 14y agoWow! If these guys manage to rebrand and capture the entertainment segment, that will be huge. They need to focus on being fun and forget everything facebook or LinkedIn and this will allow them to innovate. Also they should hit the under 24yr old market hard as this is where a lot of market share lies for new innovative products and they will have less bias against the MySpace brand name. If they succeed students will be covering it as a case study in business schools.
- electic 14y agoThis site seems overly designed. It's so badly overly designed that my eyes hurt. That is why sites like facebook and twitter do well, they have predictable design that prevents a lot of rapid eye movements from top to the bottom of a screen to take in content. I'll pass.
- iblaine 14y agoAs a former MySpace employee I hope the redesign is worthwhile. As a former user I am not holding my breath. I certainly hope they threw out 100% of all the old code and started from scratch.
- doomslice 14y agoWe did.
- matmann2001 14y agoThe song is oddly appropriate. Who am I to say I want you back? When you were never mine to give away. I was waiting for a long, long time for you to feel the same.
- earbitscom 14y agoI know the guy who picked the song. He was still securing it Friday and telling me he had to get it, that it was perfect. I agree. ;)
- ldng 14y agoOk, I'm not the only one who though this song was choosen on purpose. And indeed it was. Edit : who's the band/singer ? Edit 2 : my bad, just had to look closer at the player :-) It's Heartbeat from JJAMZ
- prebrov 14y agoThe song is beautiful and gives a romantic fleur to the endeavor. Just watched the official music video though and that made it even more oddly appropriate. Talking about an old creep stalking young teenage girls. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0okSCBqw18 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0okSCBqw18.
- Apocryphon 14y agoIt seems promising, but isn't Latest the unholy lovechild of Facebook's News Feed and the controversial Timeline format?
- at-fates-hands 14y agoThe Opera landing page is not just disappointing, it's downright offensive. As someone who never used MySpace and is a fleeting Facebook user, I would've been interested in seeing the new product and willing to sign up and see if it's improved at all. As it stands right now, not only am I not going to use it based on this stupidity, I'm going to make sure none of the people I could've brought over from Facebook don't either. Way to alienate people before you even finish the new design. Bravo. JT must be so proud.
- hackinthebochs 14y agoWhy on earth are some of you guy's egos tied up in your choice of browser?
- robinduckett 14y ago> fleeting Facebook user > Opera user You're clearly not the target demographic though, right?
- at-fates-hands 14y agoI might not be the target demographic, but when you're trying to revive a dead horse, you would think your target demographic would include people who use any browser, not just the ones you approve of. If there's one thing I do know, Opera has a very large, very loyal following. Not sure what motivated them to simply discount these people as possible users. Not smart IMHO.
- Dystopian 14y agoAside from worrying about some of the UI/UX elements - I think it looks beautiful - hopefully it's a touch more intuitive in real world use :-)
- jamgraham 14y agoNice artist dashboard - Good to see focus on the artist too.
- campuscodi 14y agoYes. Quite a good redesign.
- djt 14y agoThis looks like a great way to be a social network for bands/DJs/music and potentially monetise around the sale of music/festivals/marketing-music. bands actively use Myspace still, that is a massive captive market. Not sure why this is getting such negative press here on HN since I'm sure Patio11 would agree that this is genius on their behalf. The fact that the music industry is in turmoil could make for a great monetisation strategy for Myspace. Potentially with a much greater Profit than Facebook (ie Myspace may capture the music marketing/distribution problem which is still a multi-billion dollar industry). Think Google Adwords for music discovery. I wouldnt be surprised if Justin Timberlake has an album coming out which can be downloaded through his Myspace when it comes online.
- tonster 14y agoI completely agree. Bands have never left Myspace, and it seems finally Myspace will try to really incorporate bands/DJs/Marketing campaigns into the social network. I imagine monetization would come rather easily with this as well.
- narendranag 14y agoThis should be very interesting: I think kids between the ages of 9 and 15 have started to see FB as the social network of old people (millenials and X-ers) and are spending way more time on Pinterest etc. And Pinterest doesn't give a complete social experience. The new myspace just might become the social network for gen Y (or Z or whatever alphabet we have for them :)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- fotoblur 14y agoI am glad to see designers pushing for the horizontal scroll. IMO, the everlasting vertical scroll always bothered me as unnatural. Kudos to MySpace for pushing the envelope on the redesign. My visits to Facebook won't be the same ;).
- yakshaving 14y agoBlows. My. Mind. Amazing, amazing work. I wish we could see this level of design work for products that aren't for hipsters and celebrities though. From a look at Josephmark's webpage, it looks pretttty similar to We Are Hunted (http://wearehunted.com/a/#/emerging/ http://wearehunted.com/a/#/emerging/) and The Global Mail, which are their works. I imagine the conversation went something like this: MySpace exec: "Nice work on WeAreHunted! Can you replicate basically the same site with some venn diagrams?" Josephmark: ::shrugs:: Sure, how much? All cynicism aside, it doesn't really matter where myspace got the idea, the video actually looks like this is executed pretty well. I hope myspace will resurrect into something cool and useful to people. Congrats to the design and dev teams!
- swalsh 14y agoThe site is really sexy, i like it. However I don't think it matters. Social media is built on fads. Myspace had its day, there once was a time when it was the "cool thing". I wouldn't be surprised if a few more users come back. However i'd be really surprised if it was any significant amount. The site, just like Digg, is a zombie. It is the living dead. You just can't make zombies into productive members of society again.
- sodafountan 14y agoDid Microsoft acquire Myspace? Looks like the (formerly known as) Metro interface, which is actually really smart, wouldn't surprise me in the least if Myspace got big again.
- hhudolet 14y agoWhat's the new tech stack? Old myspace was asp.net, and I still see response headers with IIS 7.5 and asp.net 4. Wonder what's new architecture!
- sabret00the 14y agoWhat I find interesting here is that it seems to have gone from generic social media site to glorified music promo site and now back to generic social media site? I thought they were going to buy soundcloud and really attempt to push the music/artist interaction boundary. Oh well, I guess we'll see.
- marklindhout 14y agoMyspace. Now does EVERYTHING.
- mhd 14y agoNow do livejournal.
- MojoJolo 14y agoIt looks like it got a Windows 8 UI feel to it. Well, it looks good! But is looking good can make an impact?
- rsobers 14y agoI'm impressed. It's like rdio meets Facebook meets Pinterest. I actually love it. Makes Facebook look stodgy. Plus fucking 1.
- KeyBoardG 14y agoIf they are going to refocus on music, they need to make some kind of acquisition to make us care. SoundCloud maybe?
- jaysonelliot 14y agoAs a UX designer, I was fascinated by what was actually happening behind all the fast edits and hip soundtrack, so I stayed up far too late last night writing this 4,000 word deconstruction of the new demo: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4572608 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4572608