MySpace Launches New Minisode Network - TV in Ten Minutes

In a tepid battle with Facebook, MySpace recently premiered its new broadband channel called Minisode Network. As both Facebook and MySpace compete in the social networking space, MySpace's release of a new way of viewing old sitcoms may spring them back to the top of the most fierce battle on the web today. With over one hundred million registered users, it easily outpaces Facebook whose database includes about half of the MySpace contingent.

In the Minisode Network, MySpace leverages society's appetite for entertainment with the time constraints by allowing people to view a shortened version of a sitcom's episode. MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe said at the launch of the Minisode Network that the network would allow MySpace users a chance to watch old television sitcom greats in a modern, stylized fashion. A standard sitcom has twenty-two minutes of available viewing. The other eight minutes is for commercials, intro and closing segments. MySpace takes the twenty-two minutes and condenses it into four to six minute shorts to give viewers an expedited, critical moments viewing experience.

Launched in June, the Minisode Network has Sony Pictures' catalog of hit sitcoms from the 70s, 80s, and 90s is available for users of the broadband channel. That means viewers can watch such vintage shows as Different Strokes with Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges, as well as TJ Hooker which has William Shatner on it. There is also the entire catalog of Ricki Lake's long-running talk show on it. For people who are DVD purists and purchase entire seasons to watch. Downloading a season of Ricki Lake and gobbling it up in a short amount of time will be an exciting option.

With their partnership with Fox, MySpace already has sitcoms available on-demand. The entire Fox season is available for viewing, including the latest episodes. MySpace users can catch Gordon Ramsey's latest kitchen rant on Hell's Kitchen or this summer's hit show, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader. With Fox's Full Throttle media player and High Definition streaming, viewing is better than a standard cable picture.

The Minisode Network is currently commercial-free. Honda currently sponsors the entire channel. In addition to placement on the Minisode home page, Honda has a 3-second billboard and a 5-second mini commercial at the top of each episode. MySpace users are able to embed the Network on their profile page. While some have compared the episodes to Cliff's Notes, Sony promises that the premise of each show remains intact. With fifteen shows already committed, and new shows being added weekly, MySpace hopes to have five hundred available for viewing in some capacity by the end of 2007. What Sony gets out of this deal is introducing a new generation to classic television shows in a way that is simple, quick, and non-threatening. With the age of MySpace users falling in their early twenties, watching an episode of The Partridge Family, Fantasy Island, or Silver Spoons allows the shows to live through another generation of viewers.

With Sony's deal with MySpace set to expire in August, look for more social networking communities and other Internet sites to make the Minisode Network or some variant of it available by this fall. That will include the Facebook site that is pushing MySpace for social networking supremacy. With Facebook finally eclipsing MySpace for new subscribers in a calendar month earlier this year, the heat has turned up on this competition between social networking giants.

Facebook has gone so far as to open source part of its platform to developers. With MySpace all new applications are done exclusively by MySpace. Facebook's approach is to allow developers to design their own applications and load them onto the Facebook platform through its Facebook Developer Application. With new applications launching weekly, Facebook users rate the new applications and Facebook's users are able to add to delete applications daily.