MySpace woos Indian artists with community appeal

Though a late entrant, MySpace is not letting that fact spoil the party it’s planning in India. The social networking site has already been launched in the beta format. And it is now using music to position itself high on the popularity lists.

MySpace began by hosting a show called Campus Star on Channel V. Aspiring contestants had to upload a short video of themselves on MySpace and Channel V would select the best among them. Surprisingly, the contest didn’t feature at all on the Channel V website.

Travis Katz, managing director, international, MySpace, adds, “There is increased growth in online advertising and hence the market opportunity too is great.”

Though MySpace hasn’t got any Indian advertisers on board yet, it is in talks with many of them. It has teamed up with music label Saregama to launch Underground, a series of albums by 30 odd artists, who have never been recorded before. Another event that it will associate with is the Roots Festival in the Northeast. These concerts will be captured and subsequently aired on various channels.

MySpace looks to leverage its identity in India through the creative community that it is setting up. This creative community comprises all kinds of artists, whether dancers, musicians or filmmakers. MySpace will provide a platform for these artists to showcase their talent. This will act as a growing community and provide better distribution and reach to the artists.

MySpace has been creating original content series and not just user generated content wherever it is present in the world. As it allows for music sharing, video sharing, mobile, instant messaging, blogging and various other features under one roof, content has been created in association with various production houses and record labels specifically for MySpace. MySpace plans to carry forward this idea in India, too.