MySpace looks to UK music scene
MySpace.com to launch a UK version of the social networking site within 30days.
MySpace UK to launch in 30 days
A UK version of the phenomenally successful social networking site, MySpace, will debut within 30 days.
A BBC report confirms Fox Interactive (which now owns the service) will launch a UK-specific area. MySpace already has 50 million users.
MySpace is emerging as a crucial place for musicians to attract new fans. Chart-topping UK act, the Arctic Monkeys, for example, managed to kick-start their careers by successfully exploiting such services to reach fresh ears, with the help of their fans.
They would hand CDs containing their music to fans at gigs, who then made the music available online, winning more fans, helping the act secure a record deal, and this week propelling them to the top of the UK charts.
It's a social networking market driver Fox Interactive doesn't plan to ignore.
BBC Radio Five Live reporter in Las Vegas
By Rowan Bridge
Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinson told the BBC the company would focus on the UK's music scene: "Hopefully they'll want to market through MySpace and we'll tap into the local events scene, parties, clubs, artists, film makers, television producers, so I think it's going to grow pretty rapidly."
The service will also receive a push from the company's media properties in the UK: The Sun, The Times and Sky.
The announcement was made by Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinson at a meeting of the National Association of Television Programme Executives in Las Vegas.
The site allows users to share video and photos, write blogs and network with other users.
Despite only being two years old, it has 50 million registered users.
Some 32 million of these are actively using the site.
Mr Levinson described its success as "not something you can compare to anything in the history of the internet".
Music scene
Intermix Media which owned MySpace was bought in July last year by News Corporation, the parent company of Fox, for $580m (£332.85m) as part of its strategy to increase its presence online.
Around a million of its current users are based in the UK.
In an interview with the BBC News website, Mr Levinson said the first priority of the new site would be the UK music scene.
"Clearly the first place to go is music, so we will tap into the music scene," he said.
"We're already working in the US with CD:UK which is coming over to the US, to be called CD:USA, and we're going to integrate bands from MySpace into that programme.
"We hope when we go back to the UK to tap into how successful that show is. Hopefully they'll want to market through MySpace and we'll tap into the local events scene, parties, clubs, artists, film makers, television producers, so I think it's going to grow pretty rapidly."
Mr Levinson said News Corporation would be using the other properties it owns in the UK such as The Sun and The Times newspapers and Sky Television to promote the UK version of MySpace.
He said the site was particularly attractive to advertisers because its users are overwhelmingly aged between 16 and 34 years old, an age bracket companies are keen to target.
