Last night MySpace Music went live and I’ve spent the morning playing around with the new service. The most important thing about this new service is that it is built on top of MySpace’s existing music service. There are a number of competing services when it comes to MySpace music and the most obvious are iLike and imeem. MySpace Music aims to be the top social music service.

In exchange for granting the music labels ownership in the new venture, MySpace is paying a discounted amount on each song that’s streamed. It’s not a bad model but such a system has never been tested before. Just like all the other leaders in digital music, MySpace is trying to figure out how to successfully navigate the space. With MySpace music comes two new key features: personal playlists and song purchases.

Personal Playlists

One of the key new features is personal playlists. For the first time, users will be able to create personalized playlists from all the songs in the MySpace Music directory and listen to those playlists on demand. They will play full songs with no limits. This is a huge step forward from what already exists and it’s a large step in what many consider to be the shift toward free on-demand music available everywhere.

Whether or not personal playlists accomplish that has yet to be seen. What also has yet to be seen is whether or not the number of songs sold will cover the total cost of playing all the songs for free. Part of the cost is being subsidized by advertisements which are displayed next to the music players but the model remains unproven.

Personal Playlist Player

Song Downloads

Songs will now be available for purchase. While not all songs are currently available (such as the ones included in the screenshot below), many will be immediately accessible via Amazon’s MP3 service. Not only will artists be able to sell their music but they will also be able to sell tickets and merchandise to fans.

Amit Kapur was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying “We’re not only going to be their home on the Web, we’re going to be the place they make a living.”

Updated Music Player

Conclusion

It’s unclear as to whether or not this is really going to solve the problems facing the music industry. For the most part it appears that this new service simply highlights the massive problems facing the industry as a whole. For now we will have to wait and see if it works. Thankfully, while we’re waiting we can go listen to as much free music as our hearts desire.