MySpace

Social-networking behemoth MySpace has announced plans for an overhaul that will include improvements to its navigation, search, profile-editing and MySpaceTV functions, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The News Corp.-owned site will also re-launch its home page, a redesign aimed at accommodating what sales and marketing president Jeff Berman called “bigger and more powerful” brand takeovers. He adds that the decision to expand the advertising presence on the homepage—which, in today’s incarnation, functions as a shrine to Universal’s The Incredible Hulk--was made in the interest of the users, who, he claims, "Love the homepage takeovers. … They frequently view it as content, and it adds more value to their experience." Information about the population polled was not available, but it stands to reason that News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch was among it.  read more »

It seems like all the cool kids have been gravitating toward Facebook lately, but MySpace isn't out of style just yet. Today, the News Corp.-owned social networking giant announced its partnership with three major music companies -- Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group -- in creating a new online music service, according to The Wall Street Journal (a fellow Rupert Murdoch product). The ad-supported MySpace Music will offer free tunes and video streaming, as well as paid-for MP3 downloads and other digital goodies like ringtones, and MySpace's COO told the Journal that the new service would build on the site's already popular music environment, giving it "the potential to be a significant revenue driver." Could be bad news for iTunes, but as far as the competition with Facebook goes, that site still seems to be way ahead in the "killing time while at work" department -- Scrabulous anyone? More from WSJ after the jump.  read more »

Herein: a partial guide to the 2008 presidential race's new-media-old-media bedfellows.

(a) CNN and YouTube.

(b) ABC and Facebook.

(c) MTV and...MySpace!

To wit: tonight, MTV and MySpace are teaming up for "a dialogue with John McCain", in which viewers and browsers can rock the vote 2008-style by submitting questions to the septuagenarian Arizona senator via IM.