Whenever you've heard over the past two years that MySpace is doing something new, you likely rolled your eyes, shrugged your shoulders, or otherwise made a figurative whatever at the gesture. You'd moved on, to Facebook, to Twitter, to Tumblr.
But this time is different!
No. Really. Just take a look at the new MySpace Comedy home page. It debuted on Friday afternoon, and like other sites that want to be your hub for comedy, it's built upon a combination of original content, shiny images, and social media sharing functions.
This is what Randi Siegel, MySpace's director for comedy relations and talent, had to say about the relaunched product:
The Myspace Comedy hub has been a passion project for me and my editor, Scott Rubin, because we live and love comedy. This new hub is a place for unique, quality, humorous and tragically comedic content and it will keep people connected to the latest news, events and projects from A-list comedy Gods, content partners, and really funny, remarkably low paid writers. Axe Hair is sponsoring our launch to promote their web show “Chad, Matt & Rob present The Teleporter”…or maybe just to remind comics to wash their hair every once in a while.
Myspace Comedy is the latest addition to the Movies, TV and Celebrity Hubs which all combine editorial and trending articles that feature news, videos and photos from around the web. But it’s so much more than a great content hub because Myspace Comedy has built a community where talent can share, distribute, and have their content be featured throughout Myspace. The new Myspace profiles are a great tool for performers: the sleek, streamlined, versatile design, makes them better than personal websites and, we can help connect performers to their fans through sharing, streams, the discover tray, the home page and across various networks for a great social and promotional experience. The events platform is an invaluable tool where club gigs, book, CD/DVD releases and appearances can be promoted and enhance the social experience for friends and fans with similar interests. Each comedy item on our hub recommends related content and topics for sharing and helps put a spotlight on talent that otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to be seen.
They got a boost from the biggest name in comedy, Bill Cosby, when he asked his Twitter followers on Friday how they liked his new MySpace page.
If you check out the new Bill Cosby MySpace page, then you'll see that it's dramatically different from the MySpace you remember when Dane Cook led the way for pretty much every comedian to create a MySpace page, making the network an invaluable resource and the dominant platform for comedians from 2005 through 2007.
What made MySpace great in the beginning was how it was based upon bands, and then also comedians, and creating connections between them and their fans.
Is this reboot enough to get you interested in giving MySpace another chance? It's interesting timing on the network's part, as Facebook is about to unveil yet another redesign following a 60 Minutes profile and blockbuster movie, and Tumblr crashing over the weekend.
Hey Sean. I’m a contributing writer to the new comedy hub (a few of my news bits and comedy pieces are already online, actually) and I just wanted to say thanks for the writeup.
As a regular reader of The Comic’s Comic, I’m really glad you checked us out. We’re trying to sort of bring a little credibility to the new site and bring in real, hardcore comedy fans along with the more broad general audience. Anyway, speaking for myself and I’m sure a couple of the other guys who are writing it, we’re trying to do good work that’s worth the your time and ours and hopefully even earns a few legit laughs.
Thanks again!