I think it's very interesting, and I think they're focus is in the right spot: entertainment, but I'm not 100% sold on all the crazy interaction and UI design, it looks great, but will it be a great experience? I'm not sure.

In addition to speculation about the UI, I'm interested to know if people think Myspace can make a solid comeback. I think they might be able to turn it into something viable, but probably shouldn't be gunning for Facebook. Regardless, I'm interested. Anything to clean up the results I get when looking for a band's tour dates!

My biggest skepticism rests in their ability to main and iterate on a design that was not done in-house (it was done by josephmark.com.au). After all, Myspace has always been an entertainment company, not a technology company. The entertainment industry has always been known for thinking that they can just throw money at a problem and things will just work out.

Oops! I meant to say "maintain" not main.

Very good point Tyson, thanks for sharing it. Wasn't something I was thinking about, but it's true; design is an ongoing, iterative process. Things could go south quickly if they don't have the resources to adapt and evolve over time. Especially if they gain some traction.

Which is likely the reason their preview is far from what many would consider an "MVP". I don't mean for that to come off as criticism, it just might be indicative of the fact that they needed a buffer of less critical features since they wouldn't be able to add them later as easily.

To clarify, I mean far *beyond* what many would consider an MVP.

If you come at this from a more traditional software development outlook, I don't think they're thinking of this as an MVP. This is the product, and everything else would just be a modification of this. They're probably betting on this being a big hit from the get go.

My other question is, "where's mobile?"

Right on, ST. Danny Trinh made the same point yesterday as well:
twitter.com

However, I don't know how much mobile traffic MySpace has. If all their users are on desktop, I could see how they would want to start there.

I was thinking the same thing re: mobile at first, but quickly dismissed it for the same reason you mention Cemre. I think mobile should be a priority for them, but it does make sense for them to try and leverage their existing desktop presence.

I'm not sure how much traffic they have, but they still have great Google juice when it comes to tour date searching and the like.

There's something unnatural about side-scrolling websites. It's not that they're just different and therefore take a bit of getting used to - it's that they are inferior to traditional vertically scrolling websites.

On desktop, you have to two finger swipe left/right to explore. Try it. The whole hand has to pivot instead of just the fingers bending. If you use a mouse with a wheel, it either doesn't work, or has an unnatural mapping.

On mobile (good points above), side-scrolling feels claustrophobic in portrait-mode. It works beautifully in landscape, but who browses the mobile web in landscape?

Maybe I'm alone in this, so can anyone name a MAJOR site that uses side-scrolling? I think there's a reason..

I would be interested to know if they actually use vertical scrolling gestures (wheel or trackpad) to control the horizontal scrolling if the whole UI only utilizes horizontal scrolling for overflow. It would be a win for those who use a mouse without scrolling capability. It would also be nice to not have to click/tap and drag/swipe to move around.

How much does the UI influence the popularity of a social site? , the question might is the new MySpace going to provide something new to the user?

I agree with you Nick. Although from an aesthetic standpoint, the new Myspace is fairly refreshing. However, this does not constitute a need for the revival of a dead product that IMHO is at the bottom of an already saturated market.

Although, I'm sure myspace is fully aware of the uphill battle that faces them, I'm just not sure that there is a feature set robust enough to overcome the social phnom of just not being "cool" anymore.

I am looking forward to exploring the product and hey maybe I'll be able to get in touch with that high school, ex.

It looks to me like a marketing initiative based on the big brand fallacy, "Apples products are look nice and people like them, so if I make my product look nice, people will like it." The focus on design has meant they've not demonstrated features that would make me give a shit about the product.

They've made the opposite of ifttt.com.

I dont disagree Dylan, but if you would have told me that a social network that made our high res photos look like they were from the seventies would be popular I would have called you crazy, or a reality show about Honey Boo Boo. Lets face it, the mass user will decide whether or not the new MySpace is compelling

You can't "like" comments but Nick is spot-on. No one knows what people will fall for. But I still think that if MySpace doesn't have a coherent mobile strategy, they might as well not bother.

The new Myspace design looks great completely filled out with all of that premium Justin Timberlake content, but how will the design hold up for all the baby bands that have little to no media (photos, videos, music, etc.)? One of the great joys of Myspace was discovering baby bands, not reliving massive pop culture favorites. To that end, this doesn't feel like a utilitarian design.

One of the biggest problems I think Myspace is going to face is the stigma of past failure associated with the brand name. Going from the highest traffic site online (techcrunch.com) to completely irrelevant is a pretty spectacular fall from grace.

Why go through all the effort of overhauling the myspace brand with which people have a negative association, and not create an entirely new product that won't carry the criticism of the old platform?

Are there really enough active users to warrant keeping the name alive? Are those users who are still faithful users going to be happy with this imposed change?

I think a new service with an import tool for data from myspace may have been a better use of time.

I'm not that old in web years, so I don't even have a MySpace account in the first place and do not have the benefit of its nostalgic legacy. For all I care, its just another social network.

I remember rushing off to Google+ with all the cool kids back then. After a while, the novelty wore off. My friends are on Facebook, and the news is on Twitter. There are only so many social networks I can cram into my life at a time.

I now have Facebook fatigue, but there's a group I joined that makes me check in. Twitter was becoming overwhelming until I tuned out with carefully curated lists. Gplus might as well not exist for me. Unless there is some sort of differentiation that is sticky, I wonder if I will be able to make space for MySpace.

The fact that MySpace is a trending topic digitally tells me that the name is very relevant, take a look at the twitter for @marilynmonroe or her facebook page. She passed 50 years ago and her number one like on facebook is a twenty year old. Full disclosure: My company owns the estate

Andrew, I think that MySpace has been dead as a doornail for so long that much of it's negative association has decayed along with the rest of it's brand. Before today the only ones who still cared about MySpace one way or the other were the people who still use it. I think the potential of starting off with tens of millions of users right off the bat is worth gambling that your brand is too dead to be toxic.

Movies without a clear audience often put everything into a great trailer and gamble on opening weekend. Myspace has done exactly that and is relying on the appeal of Justin Timberlake to get an audience quickly.

Watching the video the first time, the design is impressive and the movement fluid, but if you slow it down and go section by section, it shows that it is no more relevant now than it was a six months ago. Each section spawns usability, security and "why would you do that?" questions. As the final insult, Myspace expects you to request an invite ...to Myspace. Which is a little like putting your name in a lottery for tickets to a flea market.

While it did look interesting it did seem like there would be a lot of usability questions. The interface seems better suited for touch and there are some concerns of a disjointed effort. Outside of being someone of Justin Timberlake's ilk it's hard to understand how one would use the site. I wonder how a search with such a large font is going to play in the real world. Always glad there is an effort out there to do something different. Oh while we are on the subject can someone tell me the point of G+?

I agree—if you are the average person, with average camera-phone photo skills, and not in a super cool band, or making dj mixes for after hours parties, Yourspace will pretty much end up looking like the old Myspace, but in a Pinterest slider, with all of your photos from Facebook.

Josh - I couldn't agree more and I find the usability of the pinterest style boxes to only work with images/video and not so much with text. Not to mention that the pinterest style is now just overused.

I think people will ditch Facebook one day again, with all the privacy things going on.
For musicians Facebook isn't that much either. How many bands are actually on Facebook and doing a great job?
Facebook changes alot to please the bands, but they are not doing a great job in my opinion.
Bands tend to go to other websites like Bandcamp, Soundcloud etc.
If MySpace knows how to lure the bands back, the mainstream people will come as well.
And let's not forget, the majority of the people on Facebook now, never went to MySpace old style. So they can be persuaded to go to MySpace new style.

Great comments and insights! Here's what I think:

1. MySpace can open up to a new group of users, users who never used MySpace and were probably too young to give a shit at that time.

2. MySpace could make it the defacto place for musicians to build their brand and network. Facebook Pages are seriously not the right way to go.

3. Imagine Fun. or Justin Bieber going the new MySpace route instead of building their own network like LadyGaga.

4. Justin Timberlake could start his own record label and make MySpace the place to show case all the artist he signs.

5. There's more than one way to skin the cat...successfully ;)

My only concern is that this a v3 - 4. They should have built something light to take off and then iterated over it.

Matt, I think there is an important UI distinction between what Pinterest does and what MySpace is doing. With Pinterest you very often need to scroll down to see an entire post, and then have to scroll back up to see the next post. This spoils the flow of the "stream of information" that has defined blogging since forever. Also, it is often very difficult to figure out what the logical next post should be once you've lost your place by scrolling down, since nothing is aligned. These factors make the Pinterest model unusable for text-based content.

The new MySpace doesn't suffer from these problems. Things are arranged logically in columns, it is never ambiguous what the next post is and nothing is ever obscured below the fold.

Per Nick's examples about instagram and honey boo boo (?), these offer compelling utility (instagram) and compelling content (honey thingy). What MySpace seem to be hanging their offer on is 'nice interface', which isn't a recipe for long term success.

From a marketing perspective, MySpace will have to break the mold of what it was, social spaces on line have evolved a great deal since MySpace was the only game in town. I am sure they will have studied and learned a lot of lessons on what works and what does not. They were the first, others came along w/ best practices , now they reap the benefit?

For me I like it as a designer. But i think that means little in the grand scheme of things. To me it looks like they're focusing on the wrong area. It's an overdesigned feedreeder.

They should have focused on mobile to make themselves a little different and appeal to a younger, newer generation - there's a whole generation who wont have heard of myspace. And if my niece is anything to go by, they much prefer using their phones to their laptops/computers etc.

To me it looks like they're trying to please web geeks and potential investors… rather than than new users, or a new market.

Max- I don't see a difference in what Myspace is doing v Pinterest, other than it is moving horizontally. The fold has just been moved to the right instead of the bottom and in the video there is content that is partially cut off, showing the same kinds of issues. I suspect in real world use, Myspace will be ajax loading content as you scroll towards it just like Pinterest, making it less clear what is coming until it fills in.

There is an extremely important difference: there is an unambiguous stream of content. On Pinterest it is impossible to see everything without scrolling down and then scrolling back up. This breaks both flow and context. On MySpace your eyes do the moving, not the scroll wheel. Your read it like a newspaper: down the current column, then top of next column. Content also has been limited in size to never occupy 2 columns. No ambiguity, no loss of context.

Think of it this way: on a blog, when you've reached the end of a post, your eyes drop you off right at the beginning of the next one. Same thing with Twitter or Branch or anything. on a hypothetical text-based Pinterest, when your done reading a post at the bottom, your eyes are dropped off in no man's land. You now have to trek back up the page to find the next item, often requiring a scroll, and there is no obvious place where the next item should be. On MySpace, one of two things happen: either the next post is right below the first and your eyes don't need to move at all, or the next post is at the very top of the next column, which is easy to find because it is at the exact same screen height every time. Your eyes know where to go.

The Pinterest stream is not exactly ambiguous, it is time based with left-to-right, top-to-bottom flow, filled in with the feeds of the people you elected to follow. Myspace has a stream that is also time based with top-to-bottom, left-to-right flow. In both the Pinterest and Myspace streams, things take up exactly one column.

If the big difference is that the Myspace feed timeline is vertical and moves sideways and thus psychologically more readable, I would say, maybe. Looking at the 3+ columns in the paused video, my eyes do not read it like a blog, but jump around because things are not uniform, and i am seeing more than one column in my view. Not surprisingly, this is the same response I have to looking at a Pinterest feed.

If they can make a very nice and inviting mobile application, they may win quite a few people over. Everyone nowadays owns either an iPhone or a top-end Android device. Apps are everything. If they get that right, I think they will capture some of their lost audience back.

In my mind it's simple. The design looks great and the new approach seems fun.

The big question is whether or not it fulfills a real need that people have. Not an alternative to another forum or platform, but an actual need that isn't being covered by others. If it doesn't do that...I don't think it will have legs.