The recently engaged actor/singer sported a beard while at a Vegas conference to launch Myspace TV in the next few months.
Justin, who knows a lot about the internet based on his role in “The Social Network,” announced the former website MySpace is teaming up with Panasonic to kick off Myspace TV, a place to watch television shows online.
PC Magazine says MySpace will now be undergoing a lot of changes, including it’s dropping the capital S and getting a complete design makeover.
Myspace TV will start off airing music videos and songs for free. It will start with a collection of over 100,000 videos and 42,000,000 songs. The site will then expand to sports, comedy shows and reality TV. Of course the majority of these items will be Timberlake-related movies and music.
Unfortunately, MySpace TV has the same longevity and appeal as his grizzly beard.
Leave it to a singer/actor who starred in a movie about Facebook to come up with ways to refresh MySpace.
The popular social networking site was a huge hit up until 2006 when users flocked to Facebook. Now, Justin Timberlake, who is a Myspace shareholder (and friends with Tom) will spend 2012 brainstorming ways to bring users back.
The Cry Me A River singer told MTV: ”I don’t have anything on my plate other than think-tanking a lot of different ideas for MySpace, which doesn’t require a lot of my literally being present…Seriously, I don’t have anything on my plate for the rest of the year. I am going to take a vacation. I’m going to find out what a vacation really is.”
If anyone can reinvent a lame, redundant website it’s Justin. He’s done a lot of creative things over the last few years, including building an eco-friendly golf course in Tennessee.
If he can bring sexy back, think he can bring MySpace back?
At first, Sky Ferreira seems like your typical pop star on the rise. The big, curly, blonde hair. The rock n’ roll sense of style. The I-don’t-care attitude. But her music and background are definitely no ordinary story.
“My dad is Brazilian and Portuguese and my mom is Native American. It’s funny because I came out looking like, pretty white,” says Ferreira over a phone interview. “I’m Caucasian-looking and none of my family is; everyone in my family is at least two shades darker than me.”
Ferreira, who recently released her EP “As If!” on iTunes on March 22, is definitely a star on the rise. Her and her song “Sex Rules” have appeared in national CK One ads, she has modeled for Nylon, Vogue Italia, Vs. Magazine, and on top of it all, is releasing a full-length album sometime next year.
It’s no surprise her modeling career has taken off, though – the LA native is a real head-turner. Her big brown eyes command attention, her style makes you want to rethink your entire closet, and her hair is just downright cool. But at the end of the day, what comes first – singing or modeling?
“I mean, singing will always be my first passion. But they’re all very important. Modeling is important to me and it’s definitely helped me get out there, so I don’t think it’s a disadvantage,” says Ferreira.
The singer got her start on MySpace, the online music social-networking scene that has launched the careers of Lily Allen and Sean Kingston alike. She attributes her big break to constant hard work and pestering record labels. “I wasn’t going out and doing really bad things, obviously,” says Ferreira. “I was going out and kind of getting myself out there.”
This pestering eventually lead to capturing the attention of Bloodshy & Avant, two of the hottest music producers today responsible for many Britney Spears hits such as Toxic, My Prerogative, and Me Against the Music. The Swedish duo worked on two songs off Sky’s EP – “Haters Anonymous” and “108″ – as well as her single “One.” The result? A unique sound that battles mainstream pop with French and Dutch quality.
It’s a Monday night in Golden, British Columbia, and Crush Luther have just finished playing for a crowd of one person – the creepy bar owner.
There were three girls around earlier in the show, but they left because the bar owner was drunk and hitting on them. There was also a drunk named Kurt, but he got thrown out minutes into the show.
“[Kurt] was the drunkest human being I have ever seen,” Luther Mallory, lead singer of Crush Luther, told andPOP. “He was on the stage with us, just swaying back and forth, ready to pass out.”
After the show, at around 2 a.m., Crush Luther was hanging out at the bar and having a couple of drinks. Then all of a sudden, a giant crowd of people wandered into the bar and demanded some live music.
Crush Luther answered the call.
The giant crowd of people had been at the local strip club, where a new stripper had come to town for the week to dance.
The people of Golden called this night, “fresh meat night,” which Mallory said is horrible and horrifying as anything.
Elly Jackson of La Roux sits way in the back of her tour bus. Quiet. Secluded. Curled up. On first glance, seemingly trying to shut out the blistering cold Toronto November day outside, and maybe even the world along with it.
But can you blame her?
As one of the United Kingdom’s most popular new artists in 2009, Jackson finds it hard to trust people these days. Her tendency to be honest and opinionated have often been taken advantage of by media haters. But the singer can’t help it, she’s always been an individual with real thoughts and feelings- a leader rather than a follower. Even back in Elementary school, the 21-year-old London-born says she was a tomboy, and always had a bit of an assertive and free-spirited tendency.
But that ability to not succumb to peer-pressure is one of the main reasons for the raving success of her debut self-titled album last June, her flooding international fan-base, and why she will keep pushing strong past the negative hurdles in her career.
“You really have to be careful in this industry,” Jackson tells andPOP in her tour bus. “Obviously it’s impossible for us to like everything. So when you can get asked your thoughts about something, and say we don’t like or agree with something, it’s like a total shock to the world.”
Already drawing comparisons to Freddie Mercury and Elton John, British sensation Mika is set to unveil the first single from his new album We Are Golden on MySpace on Tuesday for 24 hours only- starting at 9:00 am EST.
The record is set to hit stores on September 22, and boasts Greg Greg Wells (Katy Perry, P!nk), and artists Imogen Heap and Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallett, among others.
The 25-year-old’s global following can be attributed to his applauded 2007 debut album Life In Cartoon Motion- which spawned mega pop anthems such as Grace Kelly, Love Today and Relax. The record sold over five million copies worldwide, and also gained a slew of awards and nominations including Grammys, Brit Awards, World Music Awards, and the UK’s most prestigious songwriting honor, the Ivor Novello Award.
MySpace has announced its eight most popular musical acts and most watched videos of 2008.
Gorillaz topped the first list, which ranked artists in terms of their number of MySpace friends, with more than 682,000 friends.
The animated alternative-trip-hop band, which released a compilation album of B-sides and remixes called “D-Sides” in 2007, was followed on the list by Bullet For My Valentine and Amy Winehouse.
Meanwhile, Madonna’s “4 Minutes” was the year’s most watched video, edging out The Verve’s “Love Is Noise” and Brighton Port Authority featuring David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal’s “Toe Jam.”
Oasis was the only act to make it onto both lists, nabbing the No. 7 spot on the most-popular list with more than 353,000 friends and the No. 5 spot on the second list with their video for “I’m Outta Time.”
The Most Popular MySpace Acts of 2008 are:
Gorillaz (682,875 friends)
Bullet For My Valentine (596,885 friends)
Amy Winehouse (542,268 friends)
Coldplay (525,110 friends)
Lily Allen (462,159 friends)
M.I.A. (399,858 friends)
Oasis (353,484 friends)
Imogen Heap (351,484 friends)
The Most Popular Music Videos on MySpace of 2008 are:
Madonna — “4 Minutes”
The Verve — “Love Is Noise”
Brighton Port Authority featuring David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal — “Toe Jam”
Justice — “DVNO”
Oasis — “I’m Outta Time”
DragonForce — “Heroes Of Our Time”
Sigur Ros — “Inni Mer Syngur Vitelysingur”
The Raconteurs — “Old Enough”
A Missouri woman alleged to have created a phony MySpace page which resulted in the suicide of a teenage girl has been indicted by a grand jury today.
Lori Drew has been charged with conspiracy and accessing protected computers without authorization to get information.
In 2006, thirteen year-old Megan Meier committed suicide after receiving mean messages from “Josh Evans”, a boy she was friends with online.
Meier suffered from depression and was on medication.
Drew is alleged to have helped her daughter – a former friend of Meier’s – create the MySpace account pretending to be Evans to find out if Meier’s had been spreading rumours about her daughter.
The indictment charges that Drew and other conspirators, who were not named in the indictment, used the information they obtained while pretending to be Evans to “torment, harass, humiliate, and embarrass” Meier’s.
MySpace’s terms of agreement state that, members should not promote false or misleading information; solicit personal information from anyone under age 18 or use information gathered from the social networking site to “harass, abuse or harm other people.”
After Meier committed suicide, it is alleged that Drew and her conspirator’s deleted the phony account.
Although Drew denies ever creating the account, in April, Ashley Grills, an employee of Drew’s told “Good Morning America” that she created the phony account but that Drew was the one who sent messages to Meier.
Police officials initially told Meier’s parents that they couldn’t lay charges because no laws pertaining to the case existed.
Salvador Hernandez, assistant agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, said that FBI agents in St. Louis and Los Angeles investigated the case.
Both Meier and MySpace have been named as victims in the indictment.
Drew will be arraigned in St. Louis and then tried in Los Angeles where MySpace is based. She faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
The mega-popular and multifaceted website MySpace.com will put on 20 concerts as part of a fundraising campaign for humanitarian organizations in Sudan.
All concerts will take place on October 21, reports Billboard.
Some of the top headliners include TV on the Radio in Philadelphia, PA, Alice in Chains in Winston-Salem, NC, Ziggy Marley in Medford, OR, and Insane Clown Posse in St. Petersburg, FL. A single Canadian show will happen in Toronto, though details are currently unavailable.
“The crisis in Darfur is a global concern and as a global community we have a responsibility to take action,” said Myspace chief executive Chris DeWolfe. “MySpace’s reach gives us an extraordinary opportunity to spread the word and empower individuals to help address the horrors in Darfur.”
Part of the ticket sales from each show will be donated to Oxfam in support of their relief efforts in the area.
MySpace, the online networking website used by many recording artists as a marketing tool, is moving into the world of movies.
MySpace members around the world will get a special sneek preview screening of “Borat,” the new comedy from Sacha Baron Cohen, next Wednesday. The film is currently generating a lot of buzz at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The exclusive screening will mark the international launch of MySpace’s Black Carpet screening series. The series kicked off Wednesday in the United States, when the website offered previews of Paramount Pictures’ September 22 release “Jackass: Number Two” in Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia.
“Borat” is due to hit U.S. theatres on November 3 but MySpace members in 20 U.S. cities, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the U.K., and Australia will be able to see it first.
MySpace.com is planning on allowing members to sell downloads of their own original music directly through the site’s profile pages.
The CBC reports that the project, currently still in the testing phase, could allow many new artists to profit off of the attention and fanbases already generated through MySpace profiles.
“A band in Iowa can now reach out to fans in Los Angeles,” said Chris DeWolfe, MySpace’s chief executive. “Now they have a great way to reach out to six million fans. Now they can actually sell their music on MySpace in an area where their fans congregate in a very contextual manner.”
For the project, MySpace will partner with Snocap Inc., a digital music company started by Napster creator Sean Fanning. They are expected to formally announce the initiative on Tuesday.
The project is expected to be rolled out across the United States by the end of this year.
Currently, MySpace’s three million recording artists can post up to four songs on their pages, but visitors are only able to stream the music, not save it to their computers.
