Back in March 2007 I shut down my MySpace account. It was the end of a social media era for me and a lot of other people too. A year earlier I had joined Facebook and it was clear Facebook had a much better understanding and social media than MySpace did.

As everyone has seen, MySpace is back and they posted a beautiful demo video of it. And as far as I know, it is just that, a demo. Justin Timberlake owns a controlling share of the company (hence his strong presence in the demo video) and he seems intent on bringing it back to glory.

It brings to mind the current state of Windows 8. Despite it’s fresh Human Experience in mobile computing and non-skeuomorphized GUI, Microsoft is having a bitch of a time getting traction in the market. At the end of the day, Windows 8 isn’t ‘changing the game’. At the end of the day, they have a fullscreen, multi-touch display smartphone with cellular functions, video/music playback, mapping and texting. Just like everyone else.

Will a fresh, new interface be enough to convince people to go (back) over to MySpace? Are they changing the game?

I wouldn’t be doing my job as a multimedia designer if I didn’t at least test drive it.