The first foray of MySpace (NWS-A) into music sales hasn't went as well as they hoped, as their partnership with Snocap hasn't performed like they thought. With slow sales, Snocap had to lay off about half its workforce in October.
What the deal with Snocap did was empower bands and artists to sell their music through micro online stores that were embedded in Web sites and MySpace profiles.
With that not working very well, MySpace is starting a new strategy called "Transmissions," which will allow visitors to see the various offerings of music artists and buy the music without needing to leave MySpace.
What musicians do is choose a studio, and from there decide which songs they want to perform. MySpace will then offer the performances for viewing and purchase. It's kind of like viewers being invited to a personal studio session with the artist.
Distributors of the music are allowed to name their own prices, and so each deal could be different and vary from artist to artist.
Visitors will be able to find the content on the MySpace Transmissions profile, and will also be available on MySpaceTV.
Josh Brooks, vice president for programming and content of MySpace, said the company also has plans for other revenue models in the music industry they plan on introducing over time.
MySpace Music is now the third most visited music destination on the Web, drawing 17.9 million unique visitors in October. The top music destination is still Yahoo Music (YHOO) with 22.4 million unique visitors a month, and ArtistDirect is second with 19.1 million uniques.
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