It could be the ultimate admission of defeat, or, a pretty smart move given its current strategy. According to The Telgraph, MySpace is currently discussing a partnership with Facebook where music and video content published to MySpace could easily be shared on Facebook via Facebook Connect.
How far that Connect implementation might go isn’t clear, but Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg tells The Telegraph, “MySpace could become a Facebook Connect partner – which would allow people to share content they liked from MySpace with their Facebook network.” MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, who used to work at Facebook, confirms the talks with the paper.
Why This Would Be Smart
MySpace has one of the best catalogs of music and videos on the Web. Allowing users to share them on Facebook – far and away the most popular social network – would increase distribution for this content, and potentially get Facebook users to re-consider MySpace as a content portal and not a dying social network.
Why It’s Risky
Although MySpace may envision itself as an entertainment portal, its bread and butter is still its social network – diminished as it may be. Encouraging members to use Facebook (
) for sharing content could hasten its demise in social networking at a rate far exceeding its growth in music and entertainment.
The result of that would be even more domination by Facebook, which, it should be noted, is already starting to move into digital music on its own (and already serves as a major distribution point for YouTube () content as well).
A Bold Move Is Needed
If MySpace (
) wants to remain relevant it has to be bold, and partnering with the site that toppled it as world’s biggest social network would certainly be that. Given its current goals, and the benefits we already know that Facebook Connect can provide to content sites, don’t be surprised if this deal comes to fruition in short order. We’ll keep you posted.
