MySpace gains 1 million new users

By: Chenda Ngak
Topics: Tech Talk

(Credit: MySpace)

(CBS) - If Justin Timberlake can bring sexy back, we suppose he could also bring MySpace back - with a little help from Specific Media.

The New York Times reported that MySpace plans to announce the gain of 1 million new members since Dec.

Full coverage of MySpace at Tech Talk

A few factors get credit for the social network's uptick in membership. Top of the list is the launch of a new music player in Dec. Another factor may be the announcement of MySpace TV and a partnership with Panasonic at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Jan.

"We went from zero signups per day to 40,000," Chris Vanderhook, the company's chief operating officer told the Times.

There has been much speculation over the demise of MySpace. The company experienced a shakeup when News Corporation sold MySpace to Specific Media and Justin Timberlake in June 2011 for steep discount of $35 million. News Corp. bought the social network for $580 million in 2005. At the time of the sale, MySpace had been losing users to Facebook for years.

While losing a huge chunk of users, MySpace still pulls in a decent amount of traffic. The Next Web reported recently that MySpace still performs better than Tumblr, Google Plus and Pinterest. A recent count by comScore places MySpace's unique visitors at about 24,969, with page views hovering around 25.1 million.

According to the Times, MySpace still has "licensing deals with thousands of record labels, as well as songs from untold numbers of unsigned acts," making the social network's library larger than Spotify or Rhapsody. MySpace has about 42 million songs, while a recent count of Spotify's tracks are about 15 million. Rhapsody has about 14 million.

The fact that MySpace has achieved this gain in members is no small feat. Re-branding and gaining new members for aging social networks has been a tough, if not impossible road. Social networking pioneer Friendster closed up shop and relaunched as a social gaming site in 2011.

So, where does Facebook fit into this equation?

Vanderhook told the Times, the company has no intentions of competing with Facebook. Instead, they would position themselves to be a "conduit for music and other forms of entertainment that can be shared through other networks."