I don’t know about you guys, but I had one of the best Christmases of my short life during winter break 2012. Aside from the slew of presents I gave and received to and from my family, friends, and girlfriend I also got an invitation to join something I’m really excited about.

Let me go back about 2 weeks. When I walked into the newspaper room one day during the last week of first semester I was promptly directed to a computer by Sean Gundersen. He typed something into Google and then pulled up this page: https://new.myspace.com/

Now if you read the address of that link then you now know what I was invited to join. And if you didn’t then you still know what I’m talking about but shame on you for clicking a strange link without reading it. Now, some of you are probably at least raising your eyebrows at the idea of a “new” myspace. I’m just as guilty as the rest of you of scoffing at the mere mention of the site as myspace stopped being cool in the seventh grade and stopped being socially acceptable in eighth. However, the new myspace is exactly and entirely that: new.

Forget everything that comes to mind when you initially think of myspace. Instead, imagine a melting pot of every social network on the web. The United States of Social Networking if you will. The new myspace features a news feed comparable to Facebook, music streaming like Spotify, video streaming like YouTube and photo sharing like Instagram. The best part? It’s all geared towards artists of every medium. Whether it be photography, videography, music, or more traditional art like painting and drawing, the new myspace offers the perfect template for artists to connect to fans, fans to connect to artists, and fans to connect to fans. Not to mention almost every band you can think of has one featuring most, if not all of their music along with photos, music videos, live videos, etc.

The version of ‘liking’ things that the new myspace uses is known as connecting. When you connect to an artist or friend their updates, uploads, and connections are featured in your very cool side-scrolling news feed. You can also connect to photos, songs, videos, even whole albums, all of which will show up in the news feed of everyone connected to you. The nifty thing about connecting is that it’s just like following someone on Twitter. Just because someone connects to you doesn’t mean you have to connect to them, meaning that there won’t be any undesirable content in your feed (given you’re a wise connecter).

The new myspace is going to be incredibly useful for local bands especially. It’s going to bridge the gap between bands and fans in a much more sleek and user-friendly way than Facebook. So sign up early! If you have any questions let me know via email: [email protected] Twitter: @ryanthesilver or better yet, connect to me on the new myspace.