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Just 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 po

Just 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 ago
The 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 ago
Am 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.
- artursapek 14y ago
  ...because musicians and bands seemed to have an affection for it, for whatever reason? You mean distribution agencies have an affection for it. Myspace has been around forever, so it comes up high on Google, so the guys in charge of putting St. Vincent's music online maintain her Myspace account in addition to her Facebook, iTunes, etc. The artists themselves don't really care, they just want to be everywhere that ears and eyeballs are. As far as this preview goes, it looks very much like Windows 8. You can tell there's people still just throwing money at the Myspace name, which surprises me. I thought it was pretty much a dead brand.
  - anjc 14y ago
    There's nothing wrong with looking like Windows 8 at the moment!
    - zalzane 14y ago
      Maybe it's okay to visually look like windows 8, but functionally it's looking like a complete disaster.
      - anjc 14y ago
        How so?
      - connortomas 14y ago
        Let's wait and see. Keep in mind, the video is pretty frenetically cut. The video is designed to provoke awe, but I suspect the interface is less "out there" in practice.
      - path411 14y ago
        The only functional problem with windows 8 metro I find is it's exclusiveness. I think windows 8 has a terrific UI for an application, just not for an OS. Give me windows 7 desktop where on the press of the windows key I get a windows 8 metro overlay like steam/xbox 360/ps3/etc, and I'd probably love it.
felipellrocha 14y ago
I don't know why, but for some reason I felt that, while reading your comment, you were for some reason biased towards wanting to find faults in MySpace's announcement. Just because the UI is staged, it doesn't mean they won't be able to execute on it- matter of fact, with a team the size of myspace's, they'll likely do execute, and execute it well. You mentioned that the video clearly used test data, but seemed to forget that when mentioning the affinity feature. Maybe they sync people's instagram photos on their myspace profile. Point being, give Myspace a fair change. They're certainly not the new kid on the block, are experienced, and this seems like a good new effort.
rationalbeats 14y ago
"But, I just fail to see how they are going to get a strong user base" Why not some integration with Pandora, where you can create user specific radio stations based off of the band's Myspace profile, that is also linked to their tour schedule etc etc? Then all Pandora users who have a station created from that band can be notified either though a push notification or e-mail when they are playing a club within a 30 mi radius? Integrating with the current Pandora userbase would fix the "how will they build a userbase?" and then Pandora would have another venue to access unsigned bands that they can promote through their Music Genome Project. Just a thought off the top of my head.
DigitalSea 14y ago
The company I work for (Josephmark) was hired by MySpace to redesign the site and create something radically different. The interface you see was created by a few talented designers, the video you say was staged is definitely not staged. What you are seeing is what the new MySpace will look like when it's ready to launch. Yes, the site is focusing music - the new MySpace is going to be a social music platform because it has always and still is MySpace's biggest strength (they have access to more music and videos than anyone else), when you have more music than Spotify it would be crazy to try and target a different niche. it has been mentioned by MySpace themselves in interviews about the new site it's a music product. MySpace are not trying to compete with Facebook, if anything their new competitors are now Spotify, Last.fm and Rdio. The very fact you can login with your Facebook is proof of this enough. The new MySpace is very much a music product. It has a fresh, crisp interface and it's smooth, sexy & fast. It's the fastest and best performing MySpace by far. What you see is the impressive work of the MySpace development team who have done an amazing job at taking ambitious designs and turning them into something captivating and interactive. Don't judge the site people until you try it. From a developer perspective, I think most people here on HN will appreciate how technologically advanced and smooth the new MySpace is which has been built from the ground up when it's launched. As you can see it's more than a mere re-skinning of the old MySpace code base.
- chewxy 14y ago
  Tell Ben I said hi :D Good job mate.
- ThomPete 14y ago
  I have to say as a fellow designer. Great work! It looks stunning I hope it works as well as it looks cause that is probably more important than the visual aesthetics.
  - DigitalSea 14y ago
    Thanks mate, I'll pass the praise on to the design team. I'm on the dev team here, so my involvement hasn't been as great as theirs. The response from the video seems to be pretty positive, hopefully everyone is just as impressed when the final site is ready for the public to use. I am a bit biased here because I'm proud of the work my colleagues have done, but it definitely is one of the nicest looking music products out there. Visually I think it's rather pleasing. It's different and the horizontal scrolling might not be everyone's cup of tea, but screens seem to be getting wider so it makes sense that sites start adopting a more horizontal oriented approach to web design to accommodate larger resolution screens. I do find it kind of ironic the design team use Mac's and people are saying that the new MySpace looks like it got inspiration from the Windows 8 Metro / People Hub, haha.
crisnoble 14y ago
I loved the lyrics to the song: Maybe I'm ashamed to want you back Maybe I'm afraid you'll never stay Thought I hated you a long long time There was my mistake Those were my thoughts exactly.
- connortomas 14y ago
  I loved that too. There's a good sense of humour there which was lacking from the last "My______" redesign/rebrand.
robinduckett 14y ago
Not staged, the demo user was logged in as Justin for the last half of the video
- sgdesign 14y ago
  Definitely staged, otherwise please explain to me how "Justin" adds a link without using his mouse at 02:03.
s_henry_paulson 14y ago
> just considering most/all bands are content and happy with Facebook and integration with the vast supply of Band Related apps... I don't know whether to call this a gross generalization or plain wrong, but it's both.

estel 14y ago

The 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 ago

Am 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.

artursapek 14y ago
...because musicians and bands seemed to have an affection for it, for whatever reason? You mean distribution agencies have an affection for it. Myspace has been around forever, so it comes up high on Google, so the guys in charge of putting St. Vincent's music online maintain her Myspace account in addition to her Facebook, iTunes, etc. The artists themselves don't really care, they just want to be everywhere that ears and eyeballs are. As far as this preview goes, it looks very much like Windows 8. You can tell there's people still just throwing money at the Myspace name, which surprises me. I thought it was pretty much a dead brand.
- anjc 14y ago
  There's nothing wrong with looking like Windows 8 at the moment!
  - zalzane 14y ago
    Maybe it's okay to visually look like windows 8, but functionally it's looking like a complete disaster.
    - anjc 14y ago
      How so?
    - connortomas 14y ago
      Let's wait and see. Keep in mind, the video is pretty frenetically cut. The video is designed to provoke awe, but I suspect the interface is less "out there" in practice.
    - path411 14y ago
      The only functional problem with windows 8 metro I find is it's exclusiveness. I think windows 8 has a terrific UI for an application, just not for an OS. Give me windows 7 desktop where on the press of the windows key I get a windows 8 metro overlay like steam/xbox 360/ps3/etc, and I'd probably love it.

felipellrocha 14y ago

I don't know why, but for some reason I felt that, while reading your comment, you were for some reason biased towards wanting to find faults in MySpace's announcement. Just because the UI is staged, it doesn't mean they won't be able to execute on it- matter of fact, with a team the size of myspace's, they'll likely do execute, and execute it well. You mentioned that the video clearly used test data, but seemed to forget that when mentioning the affinity feature. Maybe they sync people's instagram photos on their myspace profile. Point being, give Myspace a fair change. They're certainly not the new kid on the block, are experienced, and this seems like a good new effort.

rationalbeats 14y ago

"But, I just fail to see how they are going to get a strong user base" Why not some integration with Pandora, where you can create user specific radio stations based off of the band's Myspace profile, that is also linked to their tour schedule etc etc? Then all Pandora users who have a station created from that band can be notified either though a push notification or e-mail when they are playing a club within a 30 mi radius? Integrating with the current Pandora userbase would fix the "how will they build a userbase?" and then Pandora would have another venue to access unsigned bands that they can promote through their Music Genome Project. Just a thought off the top of my head.

DigitalSea 14y ago

The company I work for (Josephmark) was hired by MySpace to redesign the site and create something radically different. The interface you see was created by a few talented designers, the video you say was staged is definitely not staged. What you are seeing is what the new MySpace will look like when it's ready to launch. Yes, the site is focusing music - the new MySpace is going to be a social music platform because it has always and still is MySpace's biggest strength (they have access to more music and videos than anyone else), when you have more music than Spotify it would be crazy to try and target a different niche. it has been mentioned by MySpace themselves in interviews about the new site it's a music product. MySpace are not trying to compete with Facebook, if anything their new competitors are now Spotify, Last.fm and Rdio. The very fact you can login with your Facebook is proof of this enough. The new MySpace is very much a music product. It has a fresh, crisp interface and it's smooth, sexy & fast. It's the fastest and best performing MySpace by far. What you see is the impressive work of the MySpace development team who have done an amazing job at taking ambitious designs and turning them into something captivating and interactive. Don't judge the site people until you try it. From a developer perspective, I think most people here on HN will appreciate how technologically advanced and smooth the new MySpace is which has been built from the ground up when it's launched. As you can see it's more than a mere re-skinning of the old MySpace code base.

chewxy 14y ago
Tell Ben I said hi :D Good job mate.
ThomPete 14y ago
I have to say as a fellow designer. Great work! It looks stunning I hope it works as well as it looks cause that is probably more important than the visual aesthetics.
- DigitalSea 14y ago
  Thanks mate, I'll pass the praise on to the design team. I'm on the dev team here, so my involvement hasn't been as great as theirs. The response from the video seems to be pretty positive, hopefully everyone is just as impressed when the final site is ready for the public to use. I am a bit biased here because I'm proud of the work my colleagues have done, but it definitely is one of the nicest looking music products out there. Visually I think it's rather pleasing. It's different and the horizontal scrolling might not be everyone's cup of tea, but screens seem to be getting wider so it makes sense that sites start adopting a more horizontal oriented approach to web design to accommodate larger resolution screens. I do find it kind of ironic the design team use Mac's and people are saying that the new MySpace looks like it got inspiration from the Windows 8 Metro / People Hub, haha.

crisnoble 14y ago

I loved the lyrics to the song: Maybe I'm ashamed to want you back Maybe I'm afraid you'll never stay Thought I hated you a long long time There was my mistake Those were my thoughts exactly.

connortomas 14y ago
I loved that too. There's a good sense of humour there which was lacking from the last "My______" redesign/rebrand.

robinduckett 14y ago

Not staged, the demo user was logged in as Justin for the last half of the video

sgdesign 14y ago
Definitely staged, otherwise please explain to me how "Justin" adds a link without using his mouse at 02:03.

s_henry_paulson 14y ago

> just considering most/all bands are content and happy with Facebook and integration with the vast supply of Band Related apps... I don't know whether to call this a gross generalization or plain wrong, but it's both.