Great work!
It looks stunning I hope it works as well as it looks cause that is probably more important than the visual aesthetics.
Visually I think it's rather pleasing. It's different and the horizontal scrolling might not be everyone's cup of tea, but screens seem to be getting wider so it makes sense that sites start adopting a more horizontal oriented approach to web design to accommodate larger resolution screens.
I do find it kind of ironic the design team use Mac's and people are saying that the new MySpace looks like it got inspiration from the Windows 8 Metro / People Hub, haha.
It seems very tablet like. Side scrolling isn't a big deal on a touch device. Not sure how I'd like it in a browser with a mouse that only scrolls one way, but the video looks nice at least.
It's probably an alignment issue with my brain scrabbling to differentiate content.
I'm also a fan of paging over scrolling. So it will be interesting to feel how this works. Perhaps scrolling with the finger lets you focus better than scrolling with the keyboard or pointer.
MySpace is the underdog here. They will have a very hard time convincing people to join them.
I've used SoundCloud since 2008, when it was invite only and mainly known on obscure electronic music production forums. Sure, way back in the stone age musicians and producers used MySpace, but most of us were happy to get away from it as far as we could the moment an alternative appeared. SoundCloud is minimalist in nature. It focuses on the music. That's why it wins. MySpace started to look like GeoCities.
Nowadays MySpace is a wasteland, you have some big media content and thousands of dead accounts.
Arctic Monkeys were the poster child of a successful MySpace band and their last login was over a year ago.
And anyways, judging from the new look, the new MySpace still focuses on looks. Do we need another big content outlet? Shit, if you are into pop music you've probably already subscribed to VEVO's YouTube channel.
Virb tried to pull a MySpace and they failed.
Soundcloud + Bandcamp offer enough for most musicians. Add Facebook, YouTube and iTunes and most users will be happy too. Why would we need anything else?
The new MySpace is very much a music product. It has a fresh, crisp interface and it's smooth, sexy & fast. It's the fastest and best performing MySpace by far. What you see is the impressive work of the MySpace development team who have done an amazing job at taking ambitious designs and turning them into something captivating and interactive.
Don't judge the site people until you try it. From a developer perspective, I think most people here on HN will appreciate how technologically advanced and smooth the new MySpace is which has been built from the ground up when it's launched. As you can see it's more than a mere re-skinning of the old MySpace code base.