His Space? 5 Ways Justin Timberlake Can Save MySpace
Idea 1: Make MySpace the go-to social networking site for musicians.
Twitter is great for keeping up with the day-to-day lives of artists. Facebook is handy for keeping tabs on new videos and short news clips on artists. And sites like SoundCloud are helpful when it comes to releasing new music. But outside of artists' official sites—which usually look more like advertisements than anything else—there really isn't a social networking site that includes a little bit of everything when it comes to musicians. JT needs to sell artists on the idea of coming back to MySpace to centralize everything that's going on in their careers—and he needs to start by making his own page and showing how it could help his own career.
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Idea 2: Have JT join the cast of a talent search (American Idol or The Voice, anyone?) and incorporate MySpace into that.
Let's face it: No one is gonna watch an online talent search in 2011. There's also very little chance of a network picking up a talent search show based around MySpace. However, if JT offers to take his talents to one of the big talent search shows in exchange for some free publicity and possibly even a tie-in with MySpace, that's a major win for both the show and for MySpace. And it just might be enough to make MySpace at least sound like it's relevant again to the general public.
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Idea 3: Delete every single inactive profile on MySpace right now and start from scratch.
You know what people aren't gonna do right now? Suddenly log back into their MySpace account and be active on the site again after taking a year or two off. So MySpace needs to go through and delete any profile that hasn't been touched in the last six months and try and get people to sign up again—to a redesigned site that looks nothing like the old MySpace and includes a bunch of new features that make it worth their time. Losing the cluttered ads and some of the cheesy effects of the old MySpace would be a start. And if that effort was coupled with one of the previous ideas, it might get MySpace a couple of extra looks right away.
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Idea 4: Find a way for MySpace to work with the other popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter instead of against them.
At the end of MySpace's reign, one thing became clear: The site wasn't going to give in and let Facebook compete with them. Ultimately, that's what did them in, because most of today's Facebook users chose to migrate over to Mark Zuckerberg's baby and left MySpace behind for good. If they want back in the game, they're going to have to play nice with others. And that means making Facebook and Twitter account accessible through MySpace and giving props to those social networks every chance they can.
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Idea 5: If all else fails, get Justin Bieber to make a MySpace account ASAP.
JT needs to make MySpace sound like it's cool again to the kids out there. They were too young back in the MySpace's heyday to realize how far it eventually fell, so they won't hate on the idea of signing up for the site. The best way to do that is to get a bunch of teenage girls to join. Because where there are teenage girls, there are teenage guys. And the best way to get all those girls to sign up? Holla at Justin Bieber and get him—ahem, pay him—to sign up and tweet about it. By doing that, we're sure MySpace will see a spike in no time. And we're sure JT wouldn't forget the favor. Good luck, dude. You're gonna need it!
