I believe MySpace is the most best music website that there has ever been. Do you remember the original MP3.com? Well, the dream they had has been achieved - a site that anyone can put their own music on, but, unlike MP3.com, one that has all the quality bands as well. I run a small demo/promo review site mainly for unknown bands and was surprised when signing up a year ago to find about half of the bands I had reviewed over the previous 4 years were on there. I added them as friends and renewed a few acquaintanceships by doing so. Since then I have noticed that more and more bands are telling me about their MySpace pages - normally on the cover of the CDs I get and in the written blurb that comes with them. In fact it is now a shock if I can't find a band on MySpace. Recently I have been finding a number of bands that have their main .com site just redirecting to their MySpace.

Why is it good? For a start it's free. It is also a consistent layout (ignore colours/backgrounds and all that rubbish) so that you know where the music player is going to be. If you go a band's own website then it is often an exercise in lateral thinking to actually find some music to listen to. You may find MP3 clips somewhere or downloads of live recordings or just links to iTunes. When I review or blog about a band I now mostly just point readers to the MySpace page - they can quickly get to hear the music and decide if they want to investigate further. If they do like that particular band then they can even explore further because the Friends list has all the bands they are mates with. It feels like the whole music industry is there - bands, record companies, radio presenters, venues, and of course, the fans.

First, some comfort for the MySpace haters - social networks fall in and out of fashion. Friendster, Bebo, MySpace will wax and wane over the next few years. There are loads of places that could become more fashionable such as LastFM, Yahoo, iMeem, YouTube - they all have the Add Friend, and message facility. The guarantee of longevity for MySpace is, of course you want to hang out with your school friends, but you also want to hang out with your favourite bands and there's one place where you can do that.