MySpace: finally, musical monetization?

My problem with MySpace (other than your garden-variety identity theft) has always been its lack of monetization. Sure, I've said, the site is ridiculously popular. But where's the revenue? Today's BusinessWeek may have the answer.

MySpace, it appears, has unveiled a plan to partner with Shawn Fanning's latest foray into music sharing, Snocap. They'll be bringing music from indie musicians directly to fans and, you'd imagine, taking a cut in the process. It's at once brilliant and obvious: no one has taken advantage of (dare I say: "exploited") the fanboy/fangirl nature of the MySpace audience so well as bands, from the up-and-coming to also-rans. My youngest sister and my babysitter are active both in the indie music scene and in MySpace, and their iPods are always stuffed full of whatever new undiscovered tune found on the site.

Jupiter senior analyst David Card is quoted as saying he's skeptical, and our digital music expert at Download Squad agrees, "I don't see MySpace unseating the iTunes Music Store from its throne with this new offering." No, and yet that's not where this is going (Joe from Techdirt agrees): it's about monetizing the one thing MySpace has done really, really well: connect teensy bands with their groups of rabid fans. And those connections aren't going away.