MySpace never ceases to amaze me with the astronomical figures they come up with about it. Anyway, first the news: MySpace has announced that it intends to sell music of 3 million unsigned bands through the social networking site. Many see it as a direct challenge to Apple’s iTunes.



According to Mashable MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe told Reuters:

Everyone we’ve spoken to definitely want an alternative to iTunes and the iPod. MySpace could be that alternative.

Napster founder Shawn Fanning’s music distribution service Snocap will power the new feature. It may be recalled that Snocap recently launched the MySpace Music Player.



Three million unsigned bands? What kind of a number is that? Are there that many bands around? It gives the impression that every teeny-weeny band or every school or neighbourhood band will try selling some music over MySpace. If that is the case, then 30 million bands won’t be a surprise.



I had a feeling that this was coming following aggressive marketing of new bands in MySpace. There are hundreds of them there in MySpace trying to add you in their friends’ list. Upcoming and future stars like Kandice Melonakos also have very active MySpace accounts. In fact, as far as I can remember, Kandice doesn’t even have her website under a unique domain name.



Web 2.0 is a great tool for promoting and marketing and it is heartening to see wannabe stars using it to market themselves. During my school days in the late 80s and early 90s, we didn’t have anything like this, else our band The F 6-teens [acronym for Fiery 6 teenagers] would have been an international smash hit by now like the Beatles. :-P



News via Mashables