'India offers more than Bollywood'

The owner of the hottest cyberspace property is in town to announce that it’s time for Indians to log into Myspace, his creation.

Well to the unaware lot, Myspace is a social networking site that offers an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults internationally.

“Myspace is very expressive in nature. And Indians are very creative and this reflects in our art and culture,” commented Amit Kapur.

But when most Indians have turned into facebook and orkut addicts and myspace — the world’s number one social networking site now has come to India. Why such a delay? “We had to manage a couple of internal issues and create a strong base before launching into India.”

However with facebooking and orkut, the popular applications are having a pet, throwing food, binge drinking and other things. But with myspace, things are a little more serious and constructive.

The site has various communities where like-minded people come together. And creating music and forming bands is the trump card. On Myspace, musicians and artists are allowed to upload up to six MP3 songs.

The uploader must have rights to use the songs (eg their own work, permission granted, etc). Unsigned musicians can use MySpace to post and sell music, which has resulted in the creation of about 150 to 200 million bands.

MySpace music has been around since it’s debut in 1998 and the first original artists to sign up on MySpace occurred in December 1998. With such a strong background in music internationally, will it be the same for India?

“Music would certainly be an easy entry point, because it is in our DNA. Myspace is more about expressing oneself. However, India has more to offer than Bollywood and cricket. I think there is a strong cultural preference in fashion, dance, writing and other art forms. So the potential is enormous,” concluded Amit.