Empty bracket or no empty bracket: Will it work?

That’s pretty much the big question at News Corp. tonight, as its much beleaguered social networking site, Myspace, rolls out a new beta version aimed at shifting its fortunes.

And how will it do that? By moving dramatically away from its roots as a social networking site–and far, far away from powerhouse Facebook–and becoming a “social entertainment” hub aimed directly at the Gen Y audience.

That means heavy emphasis on the sharing and discovery of music, television, movies, games, videos and photos from within Myspace and without. There is also an upcoming new mobile site and better apps for smartphones and tablets.

And it also includes a new logo that features “my” with an actual fill-in-the-space bracket after it.

By the way, it’s now “Myspace”–dropped second cap–rather than the old “MySpace,” and the new color palette is black, not blue.

It is a bold, if risky, move, which could result in a dramatic decline of users or–despite the grim reality of second acts on the Internet–reset Myspace to begin a new cycle of growth.

For sure, as you can see from the screenshots below, it is a cleaner, hipper and much more attractive offering, with a tile format, ridding Myspace of its longtime cheap and noisy feel.

You can still toggle to a list or video view of the homepage.

Still, Myspace continues with the irksome moving parts, such as continually updating live notifications and real-time rolling number tickers that move constantly as people share various content.

It sort of reminds me of that national-debt clock in Times Square in Manhattan, but not as riveting.

Amid the better ability for bands and artists to more easily attract fans and promote themselves on Myspace, regular users can also become social arbiters–called “curators”–by active and useful sharing of their tastes.

And, perhaps most important of all, you can bring in a lot of outside sources, broadcast out to Facebook and have a two-way feed with Twitter.

Behind the scenes, Myspace has also done a major overhaul of its tech structure, which has been much maligned. In fact, it was once described to me as being made of “bubblegum and baling wire.”

Here’s an appalling stat, for example: There have been 117 different Myspace logos created for the service.

We’ll see how it goes, but here are videos Myspace did about the launch, including a logo-ganza:

And here are more screenshots than you ever would want (click on the images to make them larger):

Finally, here is the official press release:

MEET THE NEW MYSPACE

Myspace Debuts New Brand, Beta Website and Suite of Products That Focus on Social Entertainment for Gen Y

Beverly Hills, October 27, 2010 – Today Myspace announced a new brand, beta website and a suite of products that together redefine the company as a social entertainment destination for Gen Y. Myspace is creating a rich, highly personalized experience for people to discover content and connect with other fans who share similar interests. The entertainment experience will span music, celebrities, movies, television and games and will be available through multiple platforms, including online, mobile devices and offline events.

“This marks the beginning of an exciting turning point for Myspace. Our new strategy expands on Myspace’s existing strengths–a deep understanding of social, a wealth of entertainment content and the ability to surface emerging cultural trends in real time through our users,” said Mike Jones, CEO of Myspace. “Myspace is unique in that it is powered by the passions of our users, who program the site by expressing interests, sharing tastes and knowledge around particular topics, and scouting out up-and-coming subcultures. This is the just the first step and there will be many more features, programs and improvements to come.:

Specifically, Myspace will provide people with the ability to:

• Discover and engage with Myspace’s broad array of programming, including originals, exclusives and content from around the Web.
• Express, collect, and display their creations and interests on their profiles and through sharing tools.
• Connect to other fans with similar tastes.

Myspace will also focus on promoting curators–a subset of its audience whose reputation and knowledge around particular entertainment topics and emerging cultural trends make them uniquely influential–by supporting them with the resources, tools and a platform to expand their reach within the Myspace community.

Newly Designed Beta Site

Myspace has completely rebuilt its website, with a new visual identity and product features that put content center stage. From the color palette to the way the site is organized to the improved navigation, everything has been redesigned to help people easily find relevant content.

The redesigned Myspace welcome page showcases fresh content as it bubbles up across the beta site in real time. Additionally, once a user logs in to Myspace, the page will instantly populate with content based on the individual’s interests, creating a unique, contextually relevant discovery experience.

Registered users can now also toggle between three different views of the homepage, each specifically designed to display their stream in the way that resonates most. These include:

• List view: Traditional view
• Grid view: A magazine-like format
• Play view: A video format that allows users to watch, forward and resize their updates to full screen

To complement the online experience, Myspace will soon release a mobile version of the beta site, accessible on any mobile browser. A new Myspace app for iPhone and Android devices will follow later this year.

New Products

Myspace has released a suite of initial features that empower people to discover, collect and display entertainment content, while also offering tailored recommendations. These features include:

Topics–Myspace features more than 20,000 entertainment-focused, dynamic pages organized around topics. These pages provide a centralized location to view aggregated information about specific subject matter from a wide variety of news sites and blogs including MTV, Los Angeles Times, Access Hollywood, New York Times, Village Voice and Just Jared.

Content Hubs–These comprehensive entertainment destinations are specifically dedicated to movies, television and celebrities. The pages combine programmed editorial with trending articles that feature news, videos and photos from various content partners. Additionally, each individual article within the hubs recommends related content and topics. Hubs focused on games, comedy, sports and fashion will be revealed in the coming months.

Personalized Stream–The new stream automatically learns what to feature based on a user’s preferences and habits, so they see more of what they love and less of what they don’t.

Recommendations–This feature recommends relevant topics and other fans based on algorithms that learn the type of content a user views, listens to or watches and from whom or where they discovered it.

‘Right now on Myspace’–This feature shows trending content in real time on Myspace, helps fans find recently added music and videos, and lets them listen or watch right from the interactive chart. Myspace uses these trends to inform recommendations that promote discovery and engagement.

Discovery Tab–This always accessible tab combines videos that friends are watching with what’s trending in real time on Myspace. Scroll to the top of any page and the new Discovery Tab drops down as a horizontal film strip.

My Stuff TabMy Stuff is an easy way to see all that’s personal to a user – their profile, photos, videos and uploaded content, structured as a drop-down menu with different content areas.

Badges–This feature recognizes and rewards curators and fans for their social activity around entertainment topics on the beta site and promotes them with badges – graphic icons that appear in a user’s stream.

New Brand Identity

Myspace has also introduced a new logo that captures its revamped brand identity and values. The bracket in the logo represents a space where people can express themselves, enabling users to personalize the logo and make it their own–just as they can throughout Myspace.

The newly-designed Myspace begins rolling out today in beta and will be available to all users worldwide by the end of November. New users will have immediate access to the beta site. For more information, please visit www.myspace.com/newmyspace

MySpace is trading most of the assets of its Fox Audience Network to the Rubicon Project in exchange for a significant equity minority stake, according to sources close to the situation.

Under the deal, which is nearly complete with a signed term sheet, MySpace will hand over a number of parts of FAN, including most of its 300 employees.

FAN–after a number of attempts to spin off from News Corp. (NWS), which owns the advertising network and MySpace–was recently spun into the social networking site after the departure of its top exec, Adam Bain, to Twitter.

But News Corp. and MySpace management decided it made less sense to keep most of FAN within MySpace, which is in the midst of a massive overhaul of the troubled service that will debut in a few weeks. MySpace will keep parts of FAN related to user data, said sources.

Both companies are based in the Los Angeles area. Rubicon is one of three big “yield optimizers,” which aim to help publishers manage their relationship with advertising networks so they get the highest possible dollar for the ad space. It competes with PubMatic and AdMeld.

A variety of rumors have swirled around FAN and a number of ad companies over the last several months. One recently in AdExchanger.com had Rubicon being folded into MySpace.

Not so. Instead, this deal is similar to one that News Corp. did in January of this year with Flixster, spinning its Rotten Tomatoes movie-review unit into the San Francisco social movie site for a large minority stake in the combined entity.

Several companies were looking at the pieces of FAN, sources said, but Rubicon was the cleanest option.

It’s a save all around. Sources said Rubicon had hired boutique investment bank Allen & Co. to look at a variety of alternatives for it and also had been reshuffling its staff.

BoomTown has calls in to both companies and am awaiting official comment.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

Adam Bain (pictured here), the well-regarded exec who ran the Fox Audience Network, called FAN, is going to Twitter to head up its early but increasingly aggressive advertising revenue efforts.

Here is the internal memo from News Corp. digital head Jon Miller about the changes at the ad network, in which it is clear the company is scrambling to shift strategy.

News Corp. (NWS) had been working on a plan for more than a year to spin off FAN and sell a piece of it to private equity investors, in part to hold onto Bain.

Now, it will go spinning back to MySpace, its principal source of ad inventory.

In his memo to employees below, Miller talked about the spin-off discussions, which failed principally due to issues over internal revenue share with MySpace.

Thus, back to the troubled social networking site, which is–after much exec turmoil–being run by Mike Jones. Jones has been trying to reinvigorate MySpace with a new look and a strategy focused on music and entertainment content.

Said Miller: “By aligning the FAN platform directly with MySpace, we will be able to utilize its services to further drive MySpace’s revenue efforts and to play a key part of the site’s planned re-launch later this year.”

News of Bain’s departure as FAN president–after a dozen years at News Corp.–to become a top exec at Twitter was first reported by TechCrunch earlier today, but without details of what would happen to FAN.

Bain also addresses his departure in the memo below.

First, here is the Miller memo:

Dear FAN employees:

I wanted to address the media reports this morning regarding Adam’s departure and also share some details on our plans for FAN moving forward. First off, Adam Bain will indeed be departing FAN–a company he has led from the ground up and built into one of the Web’s top five advertising platforms in just over two years. He has been an invaluable asset to this company and we wish him well in the future.

In addition, today we are announcing a plan to move forward with an integration of FAN’s team and technology directly with MySpace. As many of you know, we have had discussions with a number of interested parties in recent months with respect to potential partnerships involving FAN. After deliberating over these external options, we ultimately decided that the best path for FAN–and for News Corp.–is to put this leading-edge technology to work to benefit our existing assets. By aligning the FAN platform directly with MySpace, we will be able to utilize its services to further drive MySpace’s revenue efforts and to play a key part of the site’s planned re-launch later this year.

Bruce Wiseman will work closely with Mike Jones and Jack Kennedy on the overall MySpace integration efforts, and you will be hearing more from your managers shortly on details regarding the integration and how it will affect you. In addition, we will be sharing information broadly with you as much as possible over the next several weeks.

Lastly, I want to thank all of you for your commitment and dedication to FAN over the past two years–this is an incredibly talented team that’s accomplished a great deal in a very short amount of time. Also, please join me in once again thanking Adam for all his work–he will be missed both personally and professionally–and we look forward to crossing paths with him in the future.

Regards,
Jon Miller

And here is the Bain memo to his employees:

Guys–

I wanted to let you know that after 12 years at Newscorp, I’m moving on to pursue a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in San Francisco.

As you can imagine, this is a pretty emotional decision and one that didn’t come easily. I’ve literally grown up inside this company and will always be grateful for the amazing opportunities that were afforded to me–the greatest among them: the opportunity to work with and lead this team.

The things we’ve done in the ad business–Self-Serve, Targeting, Segmentation and our work with big data–are too numerous to detail here, but they are industry-defining and have set Newscorp up to succeed for many years to come.

My deep thanks to Jon Miller–I’m humbled by the freedom and support given to me here at FAN. And lastly, I want to thank you, my team. I will miss the heck out of you, but I’m psyched to watch you continue to succeed, albeit from afar.

Bruce will be leading the company thru this transitional period.

Thanks again for all of your support and the privilege of leading this extraordinary group over the last two years.

–ab

Finally, here is the News Corp. official press release on the whole, well, messy thing:

MYSPACE AND FOX AUDIENCE NETWORK ANNOUNCE ORGANIZATIONAL INTEGRATION PLAN

MySpace to Leverage FAN’s Team and Leading Advertising Platform FAN President Adam Bain to Depart

Los Angeles, Calif.–August 23, 2010–News Corporation’s MySpace (http://www.MySpace.com) and Fox Audience Network (FAN) today announced a plan to integrate the FAN business directly with MySpace. The move will enable MySpace to leverage FAN’s team and its leading technology platform. In addition, FAN announced that its President, Adam Bain, will leave the company to pursue other opportunities.

“FAN and MySpace have worked together closely over the past several years and this integration will further align these two properties,” said Jon Miller, Chairman and CEO of Digital Media for News Corporation. “Adam has been an invaluable asset to News Corp, having led FAN’s growth from the ground up into one of the Web’s largest ad platforms, and we wish him well in the future.”

“By fully integrating FAN’s platform and team, we are in a great position to further leverage FAN’s technology, which allows advertisers to serve the right ad to the right person and apply that to content across MySpace to provide a more relevant experience for our users,” said Mike Jones, President of MySpace. “The FAN team is incredibly talented and we’re excited to welcome them to the MySpace family.”

Fox Audience Network was created in 2007 and currently reaches more than 150 million Internet users. The company leverages proprietary advertising technology to create highly-targeted advertising campaigns for a wide range of marketers, while also delivering cutting-edge tools and services to third-party publisher partners, advertising agencies and research companies.

BoomTown has not been much of a fan of Facebook fan pages, finding most of them sterile affairs with empty marketing messages and little in the way of real life.

But things are actually hopping if you click over to the one, located here, created for JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater, who went loco after an encounter with a belligerent passenger, opened the emergency inflatable slide and got out of Dodge.

The JetBlue (JBLU) employee got out of jail just last night and still faces charges for his dramatic actions, which could be stringent.

But his Internet life is looking good.

The Slater Facebook fan page, which has garnered 81,856 “Likes” since it was made yesterday, is the perfect example of what social networking is–chock-full of lively comments, homemade photos and topics, such as one titled “Holy Chute!”

I personally liked many of the photos, such as the one above, which has the caption: “The story of one man who’s dealt enough nuts to nuts.”

Two others are below.

YouTube is also seeing Slater-inspired actions, mostly in the form of original “take this job and shove it” ballad videos, four of which you’ll find below.

And finally–and, of course–Slater gets a Taiwanese CGI treatment from New Media Animation that is pretty priceless.

Enjoy:

It’s nice to hear enthusiasm on the part of Linkin Park band member Mike Shinoda about an innovative-for-the-music-industry effort to give fans a chance to be part of the iconic Grammy-winning rock band.

That’s because most artists or content creators–while making all the right sounds about the Internet’s impact on their business–often privately cringe at the ongoing flood of user-generated material that has drastically changed the industry.

Not Shinoda, who is certain he will find some real talent via a new online contest, called “Linkin Park, Featuring You,” that gives anyone an opportunity to collaborate with the band to produce an original song based on some of the tracks from the forthcoming single “The Catalyst.”

The song is on Linkin Park’s next album, “A Thousand Suns,” to be released September 14.

“We looked at it as both risky and fun to save a spot on the record that could be just anything,” he said in an interview with BoomTown earlier this week. “It’s creative, lets the fans be heard and, of course, is a great way to promote the album.”

Of course it is, but Shinoda said he is not expecting to have to put any bad-quality music on the record just to sell more music.

“The album could not be any more sacred to us and this is certainly an X-factor, which is kind of a move against the grain for us,” he said. “But the Internet has actually given a lot more people a chance to be heard and, as it has turned out, amateurs are so much better than we ever expected.”

So far, Shinoda said, he has just sampled a few dozen of the thousands of submissions so far, either selecting randomly or via a popularity ranking system the contest uses. He said he’s also using a range of people who are part of the Linkin Park team to filter material.

But, ultimately, Shinoda and his bandmates (pictured here) will pick the winning submission, with either the song to be included on the band’s new album or the winner to be invited to perform with the band on a song on the upcoming record. Either way, a pretty good prize for an aspiring musician.

Shinoda said he is hoping to hear a lot of different sounds from electronic music to keyboards to guitars and even horns (“No one has submitted a horn version so far,” he laughed. “But I hope someone does.”)

Linkin Park is using a group of Internet companies to carry out the massive user-generated effort, including: MySpace Music (platform, promotion and direct fan messaging); Indaba Music (hosting the MySpace application that allows musicians to auto-syndicate their remixes on MySpace); Top Spin Media (using their email for a song widget to deliver audio stems to all participants); and Ning (the back end to Linkin Park’s Web site, where they are also distributing the audio stems to push back to the contest)

There have been remix contests online done before, such as Snoop Dogg’s “That Tree” Remix Contest, which had 8,000 entries and generated a lot of fan interest.

But this effort is clearly more ambitious, perhaps because Shinoda is clearly a techie, with an ongoing interest in filling the Linkin Park Web site with puzzles, games and other interactive features.

In fact, Linkin Park had already conducted a smaller contest for fans to submit designs for characters used in a game the band released in April, called “8-Bit Rebellion,” for the Apple (AAPL) iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. And, after the game was completed by a player, it unlocked a new song, “Blackbirds.”

Shinoda said the band hopes to do even more digitally, trying to involve and engage fans in ways that they never would have tried before.

“There is a huge unknown factor and this is not something we would have done five years ago,’ he said of the latest collaboration contest. “But I am not afraid of my fans being good at music, even if it turns out they are better than me.”

Until a winner is selected, here’s a most excellent music video of my favorite Linkin Park song, “Shadow of the Day,” because I wish I had written the perfect and simple line, “Sometimes beginnings aren’t so simple/Sometimes goodbye’s the only way” (maybe some fan will write something as good):

And here’s a blog post by Sam Wick, SVP of marketing at MySpace Music, about its partnership with Linkin Park:

Linkin Park Wants To Put You on Their New Album

Linkin Park is arguably one of the biggest rock acts in the world with more than seven million fans on MySpace and iLike, two Grammy wins and a boatload of accolades from the music community. So, needless to say, we were more than a little excited to help the band launch their next album, “A Thousand Suns.”

This is a band that’s almost as passionate about social media and technology as they are about the music they create–and they came to MySpace, because we have a proven track record of successfully architecting custom album campaigns that uniquely marry music to innovation on a global scale. With this in mind, we knew we had to do something that not only raises global awareness of the new album, but really plays into the intimate artist-to-fan connection that Linkin Park has been cultivating on our platform for years. And so “Linkin Park, Featuring You” was born–a multi-phase program that each of our 30 territories across the world are rolling out locally.

Linkin Park, Featuring You begins on MySpace with a music application that allows fans to create their own original version of the band’s new single “The Catalyst” and ends with the rare opportunity for one worthy fan to have his or her song stripped onto the next album. SERIOUS. To make this happen, Linkin Park and MySpace Music brought together Topspin Media, Ning and Indaba Music–a true technology trifecta–to allow fans to interact and play with the music before it is even released. Again, SERIOUS.

Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park has this message to share with his fans on MySpace and across the Web:

“In the lifetime of Linkin Park, the evolution of community and music technology has blurred the line between artist and fan. With the release of our new album we want to push it even further and so we are making a commitment to our fans that is a first of its kind: We are blindly dedicating a spot on our new album to something unknown. That space is reserved for you and we’re confident that you will create something that we can be proud to include on “A Thousand Suns.” This is not just a “fan-remix” contest; we want to collaborate with you. This effort is made possible by the global 360 music platform of MySpace, and the dedication and talent of our incredible fans. Thank you. We look forward to hearing your submissions.”

Here’s how it works: By installing the Indaba Music-powered app on MySpace, fans have access to five stems from “The Catalyst” that they can use to re-arrange and re-imagine the song using either their own Digital Audio Workstation or with Indaba’s free, Web-based software. Once submitted, users can vote for their favorite versions and help the band in their quest to identify new talent and ultimately pick a winner.

“Linkin Park, Featuring You” is just the beginning of a much larger partnership between the band and MySpace Music that will provide Linkin Park fans with recognition worldwide with access to live shows, exclusive content and premieres as well as opportunities to connect and interact with the band in ways that only MySpace Music can offer.

Be sure to get your entries in by July 25th and don’t forget to spread the word about the contest to your friends around the world–and go buy the new single on August 2nd.

Here’s another teaser trailer for “The Social Network,” which makes it clear that the movie is going to be a warts-and-all-and-then-more warts portrait of the beginnings of Facebook.

Most maligned: Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who seems to be portrayed as a social networking sociopath.

Unlike the first–which uses single words such as “punk” and “genius,” foreboding music and some dialogue about the Web that sounds downright scary–this one uses a series of typed Wall messages on Facebook among its founders, including Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin.

Also making a special guest appearance: The Winklevoss brothers, who have claimed Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook (and whom BoomTown has affectionately dubbed The Winklevii!)

It’s all very intense, as you will see, especially the last line, uttered like there is some sort of sharp weapon involved: “You better lawyer up, since I’m coming back for everything!!!”

Rut-roh!

The marketing of this film about the Silicon Valley phenom should be pretty interesting to watch. Yesterday, I reported that Sony (SNE) studio unit Columbia Pictures will not be using Facebook to advertise “The Social Network,” due to issues around its advertising parameters.

But there are fan pages for the movie on Facebook, so apparently all is fair in, well, war and war.

Adding more fuel to the fire, it was just announced today the movie will open the New York Film Festival on September 24th (Elliot, will you attend with me?)

So, until the movie is out, here’s the new video of the trailer, with the first below it:

Yesterday, BoomTown caught up with Shelby Bonnie, the former CEO of CNET who is now running Whiskey Media, the social publishing start-up.

Sausalito, Calif.-based Whiskey is debuting its latest site today, called Screened, focused on video entertainment, which will combine both professional and user-generated content, much as its other four sites–Anime, Vice, Giant Bomb, Comic Vine and Tested–do.

Heaped on top of the niche content, aimed at passionate fans, is social networking, as well as gaming and wikis.

It’s yet another twist on the creation and distribution of content and another example of how quickly the publishing industry is changing and innovating sometimes too.

From pay walls at News Corp. (NWS) to the run on low-cost content outfits to the decline of traditional media outlets and the growth of others, it’s definitely a dynamic time.

Here’s the video of my interview with Bonnie, who has been through a lot of these shifts: