MySpace Set for Relaunch At the End of the Year

MySpace is set to relaunch itself at the end of 2012 with intention to drive through its new focus on music and entertainment. Music Week reports that the site’s owners, Specific Media will be taking pitches from advertising agencies in the near future to assert the site’s overhaul by year’s end. Specific Media’s senior communications manager for Europe Rikki Webster communicated to Music Week that acquiring the services of a new advertising agency was still in its early days:

“MySpace will look to roll out consumer-facing activity towards the end of this year, at which time we’ll most likely undertake a formal pitch, but nothing is happening at this time.”

Between 2005 and early 2008, MySpace was the most visited social networking site in the world. News Corp’s purchase of the site in 2005 for $580m is widely conceived to have been a contributor to the sites downfall. The site’s onus seemed to have switched to advertising revenues after News Corp’s acquisition rather than the site’s simple yet effective interface, and the introduction of Facebook to the social media theater also hadn’t helped MySpace’s cause. Specific Media, along with Justin Timberlake acquired the troubled site last year for $35 million, and look to focus MySpace’s priorities on music and entertainment, with more dialogue between artists and their fanbases.