MySpace made three major announcements this week—two of which served to underscore a deepening fundamental difference in philosophy from its closest rival, Facebook. The third is a half-hearted attempt to mimic Facebook.
1) MySpace announced Tuesday that it has forged a splashy licensing agreement with Sony BMG—the world’s second largest label—for access to streaming videos, music and other content. The partnership calls for the social-networking giant and the music studio to share advertising revenue.
2) MySpace will soon be offering its 110 million active monthly users free voice chats via a new partnership with Skype (220 million strong, mostly outside of the States). In a new service called MySpace IM with Skype, the Internet phone company will enhance the MySpace instant messaging service with new free VoIP capabilities starting November.
3) MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe and News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch confirmed at the Web 2.0 Summit that the company is working on a developer platform.
[via Newsweek]
