Should MySpace Music Drive Sales of iPods or Launch a MySpace Player of Its Own?

There are certain unchallengeable brands in music industry that are nearly impossible to compete with. For example, in digital music players it is iPod while in indie music distribution and self-promotion of independent music bands it is no doubt MySpace. And it looks like News Corp has an idea that combining the two could be a perfect combination for a victory - the only thing is that the iPod should not be manufactured by Apple.

The reason for me thinking so is that yesterday at the Web 2.0 Summit MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe told to John Battelle that building a device to listen to music was possible for MySpace - though he admitted there were no immediate plans for such a device.

It is obvious that News Corp is very ambitious with its MySpace Music service launched in September as they are trying to make it the ultimate destination for music fans to discover new music, stream it and download. And of course offering new ways for people to consume such music could be the next step - especially since it could also generate an additional revenue stream for the company (and I don’t think anyone will doubt News Corp could be accused of not thinking business all the time).

Of course the situation with iTunes domination in the market is hardly favorable - neither to music companies, nor to users. And a new strong player in the industry could be very much welcomed. And what could make a strong player like MySpace music stronger than an additional loyalty factor in its own music player?

Logically MySpace Music with its social features to share music and discover new music with the help of your friends could serve to drive sales of Apple-produced iPods as users could discover new music and download it to their players of choice (currently iPods as this is an obvious market leader) - constantly upgrading the players themselves. But of course any business-oriented company realizes that helping someone else generate additional revenue is not necessary when you can in fact get a share of that revenue to yourself.

So while there are no promises about it and the words of Chris DeWolfe about a possibility of building a music player more resemble a hint for us to make our guesses, it is still interesting if News Corp sees enough value in trying to launch a device that will compete with Apple’s iPod under MySpace brand relying on popularity of the social network among music fans everywhere. But it is quite understandable that now that iPod is an absolute standard for music consumption on the go, trying to offer a competitive device to consumers will require the device to be extraordinary and offer something unique in addition to simply using the MySpace brand.

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