全新MySpace混乱登场

    全新的Myspace似乎就意味着两样东西：一、它是让当前用户（或许也让所有人）找不着北的一团乱麻；二、它是音乐巨星、同时也是这个网站主要投资人之一贾斯汀•汀布莱克的宣传工具。

    打开启动画面，出现的是一幅汀布莱克的巨幅照片和登录/注册入口。当前用户可以输入已有用户名和密码直接登录（界面很清晰，参见下图）；新用户则可以创建新账号，或者用Facebook或Twitter这类社交媒体账号登录。不管用哪种方法登录，在汀布莱克的巨幅照片隐去后，用户都会被带到另一个页面，上面是一张只稍稍小一点儿的汀布莱克照片。这两个页面都提到了他的最新单曲——《西装与领带》（Suit & Tie）。

    要在这个仍被视为社交网络的网站上找人，用户可能会感到非常困惑，尽管这个网站上有更直接快捷的“发现音乐”（music discovery）模块——10年前Myspace刚成立时就已经推出这个创新功能了。搜索拥有活跃用户账号的人找不到任何热门歌曲，不过有些搜索结果会提供那些在MySpace有个人页面的艺人的主打歌曲，但为何出现这样的搜索结果则让人摸不着头脑。

    首页上没有其他用户的任何信息——只有艺人的情况。但如果你直接去找用户资料，似乎还是能找到的。

    我用自己新建的一个Facebook账号登录了MySpace，然后从浏览历史记录中调出了Myspace用户资料页面。不知怎么地，随后我就显然同时登陆这两个账号了。当我从旧账号退出时，我想用自己刚申请的用户名和密码再登陆一次，但没有成功。我想放些曲子歌——包括汀布莱克主页上的曲子。但没反应，放不出来。导航功能也让人晕头转向，尽管可能只需要花些功夫就能习惯。最起码，它不够直观方便。实际上，很难弄清怎么去找任何东西。可能过段时间这些问题都能解决，但不管怎么说，现在的用户会发现，这个网站给大家的体验跟以前我们所习惯的大不一样了。当然咯，与网站在Facebook出现之前的全盛时期相比，用户数量要少多了。

    新网站提供了音乐流媒体播放、创建播放列表和电台的功能。网站设计采用了极简风格，滚屏式导航条位于一侧。公司已经表过态，将不再与Facebook这类社交网络竞争，而是要和Pandora和Spotify这类音乐网站一争高低。

    2005年，新闻集团（News Corp.）斥资5.8亿美元收购了这个网站。本来这算是个重大机会，但它没能把握好，反而弄得一团糟。网站的设计惨不忍睹，用户刚点开一个音乐背景资料，音乐就不请自来，放得震天响，还存在重大的隐私问题。不管是否公平，它还要对网站的青少年用户中经常发生的相互欺负事件负责。就在Facebook蒸蒸日上的时候，Myspace却基本上在原地踏步，直到去年新闻集团以区区3500万美元把它卖给了包括汀布莱克在内的一个投资集团为止。

    还不算太久以前，Myspace还被视为主要服务于青少年的网站，但现在很多青少年却从来没听说过它。而实际上它曾是互联网上被人热议多年的风云网站。如果它现在这些试图东山再起的做法能说明什么问题的话，那就是，它似乎不太可能再找回昔日的荣光了。（财富中文网）

    译者：清远

    The new MySpace seems to be two things: a confusing mess for existing users (and maybe everybody else), and basically a promotional vehicle for the music star Justin Timberlake, one of the main investors in the site.

    The splash screen presents a giant picture of Timberlake and an opportunity to log in, or to sign up. Existing users can (ostensibly -- see below) log in with existing user names and passwords, and new users can either create a new account or log in using another social-media network such as Facebook (FB) or Twitter. In all cases, after the opening screen with the giant picture of Timberlake, users are taken to a page with a slightly smaller picture of Timberlake. Both pages mention his new single, "Suit & Tie."

    Users might be confused if they try to find other users on what is still supposed to be a social network, albeit one more directly aimed at "music discovery"—which was MySpace's original mission way back when it first started a decade ago. Searches on people known to have active user accounts yield no hits, though some searches will offer "hits" on music artists that are featured on the site, but there's no clue as to why those results appear.

    There is nothing on the opening pages about other users—only about artists. User profiles, though, still seem to be there if you go to them directly.

    After I logged in with a new account attached to my Facebook profile, I called up a MySpace profile page from my Web history. Somehow, I was then apparently logged in to both accounts at the same time. When I logged out from my old account, I tried to log in again using my existing username and password. It didn't work. I tried to play some tracks—including on Timberlake's page. It didn't work. The music didn't play. The navigation seems bewildering, though it might simply take some getting used to. At the very least, it's less than intuitive. In fact, it's hard to know how to find anything.

    All this might be ironed out in time, but no matter what, current users of the site will find that it's a radically different experience from what they were used to. Of course, there are far fewer of those users than there were during the site's pre-Facebook heyday.

    The new site offers music streaming and the ability to create playlists and radio stations. The design is minimalist, with a sideways-scroll mode of navigation. The company has said that it no longer is trying to compete with social networks like Facebook, but rather with music services like Pandora (P) and Spotify.

    News Corp. (NWSA) purchased the site from its original owners for $580 million in 2005 and promptly began to flub what could have been a major opportunity. The design remained horrible; unbidden music would come blaring out of computer speakers as soon as a user clicked on a profile; and there were major privacy concerns. It also -- unfairly or not -- took lots of heat for the bullying that often occurred among the site's young user base. As Facebook ascended, MySpace basically remained the same until last year when News Corp. sold it for a paltry $35 million to an investor group including Timberlake.

    Not all that long ago, MySpace was considered a site mostly for kids and young adults, but there are now many teenagers who have never heard of it. It was the most talked-about site on the Internet for a couple of years. If its first attempt at rebirth is any indication, it seems unlikely that it will attain anything like that again.