Why Quitting MySpace is Stupid – For Now

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October 25, 2010{ 13 Comments }

iStock 000013836182XSmall1 300x228 Why Quitting MySpace is Stupid For NowApparently today is the 1st Annual Quit MySpace Day where musicians are being encouraged to dump their MySpace accounts. Yes, MySpace is a clunky, annoying, spammed-filled experience, but for any serious artist/band, I think deleting your MySpace account is a serious mistake (for now). There are two reasons:

1. MySpace returns great search results on Google with some search results featuring an audio player ready to stream popular songs by that artist.

2. Press and music venues still find MySpace useful. I’m not sure why, but just about every venue and news outlet still tend to grab a band’s MySpace link over using their official website. My guess is that they know it’s a direct link to streaming audio of the artist’s music plus all the other band essentials.

I find using MySpace just as frustrating as anyone else, but it takes zero effort to let my account sit there just in case. Until it’s officially dead or there is an obvious new replacement, I’ll keep my account open. I suggest other artists do the same.

-Kevin B. at CD Baby

Chris Robley's Author Bio

  • http://www.jamplified.com Rick

    I second that.

  • Linda Vee

    I love myspace.

    Myspace is still extremely useful for bands.
    They do kill some links I wouldn’t like them to but you can just post the URL to get around that.

    Not so with Facebook
    They are worse and turn them into a loop back to your profile.
    Now that is annoying and embarrassing too.
    I noticed Facebook often does that with links posted from my Headliners promos.

  • http://johnnybeane.com johnny beane

    I still use myspace but i don’t use it an my main music player anymore because the sound quality isn’t the best.

    I use a Soundcloud widget as my music player on my website – Soundcloud is awesome!!!

    As far as checking bands out myspace is still the best way.
    Every time i google a band their myspace page is one of the first if not the first links that comes up.

  • http://www.sixtysevenmusic.com 67 Music

    We have been going back and forth over this issue for awhile now. I feel we should drop myspace, but the staff thinks otherwise. I guess, as you say, it doesn’t hurt to keep it open and setting there. Thanks.

  • Steve

    I agree. However, I’ve just started using Reverbnation and it seems like it has the potential to become a replacement to MySpace if it catches on more.

  • http://blaggards.com Chad Smalley

    While most of our day-to-day interactions with fans happen on Facebook these days, people are still looking at our MySpace page and listening our songs there. Deleting our MySpace page would be like throwing away our business cards… or worse.

    Plus I really dig the new enhancements to the band pages that finally went live recently. It’s a shame they couldn’t have rolled that out sooner–say, five years ago–but it’s still very nice. The amount of customization they offer is very generous…something Facebook will likely never do.

  • http://networkordie.com Wicked D

    I would re-phrase it to “Quit Myspace, but leave it in place day.” It definitely returns the Google results, even with other keyword phrases, such as album titles, as opposed to band names. Plus its one sheet, info style layout w/accessible player is near perfect, provided you don’t have a design-challenged idiot, cluttering it up with monster graphics and 50 videos!

    It’s definitely a mindset to many that it is a “direct link to streaming audio of the artist’s music plus all the other band essentials.” The beauty for artists is Myspace can literally be set to auto-pilot, pulling in RSS feeds from the official website & such! So yeah, leave it there, just make sure it redirects to your OFFICIAL SITE, not the other way around!

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  • M.

    guess someone’s been reading musformation

  • http://website Carroll Ringstaff

    Great Article i just got here from google news … keep it up and thanks
    Facebook Themes

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  • http://www.shareefali.com Shareef Ali

    Gentlefolk,

    I must say I wholeheartedly disagree. I just deleted my MySpace profile, and I’m very glad to have done it. Here’s a big blog rant about it:

    http://shareefali.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/fuck-myspace-you-can-tell-them-i-said-that/

    (Not spam, I promise. I even reference this article in it.)