Social media has gone mainstream, and jaded geeks are totally over it. Facebook? It's turned into "sludge for the brain now, filled with fluffy rabbits and gibberish." Twitter? Just a mess of "mass-market spoonfed 'trending topics.'" Instagram? What was once the epitome of geek chic has been overrun with filthy Android smartphone users, not to mention Iran's Supreme Leader.
MySpace Music, a joint venture between the News Corp. social network and music labels Universal, Sony and Warner,finally launches next week, says Fortune, though it still won't have a CEO. MySpace users will be able to listen to and organize playlists full of songs from all three music labels for free. (EMI is the lone holdout, which means no coldplay.) Playlists will include affiliate links to Amazon.com's MP3 store. MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe says ad revenues and song kickbacks are going to save the music industry, replacing lost CD sales.Imeem CEO Dalton Caldwell, whose company already offers a similar product,
Dalton Caldwell, founder of the little-known social network and media sharing site iMeem, is in the news because Warner Music has dropped a copyright suit against his company Instead, Warner has granted Caldwell's users free access to the label's entire music catalog in exchange for a portion of iMeem's advertising revenue. Caldwell may not be the most powerful social-network CEO, but he's certainly the scrappiest, and this is just the latest example in his history of responding well to adversity. You could learn a lesson from him Or five lessons, actually:
