MySpace inflates its music numbers
Remind us: Were we supposed to be impressed that MySpace's minor update to its music feature, dressed up as a joint venture with the record labels, has streamed 1 billion tunes in "a few days"? Before the launch of MySpace Music, MySpace was already streaming 5 billion songs a month, largely thanks to the blaring, automatically played music on most of its users' profiles. How many days are "a few"? In the ordinary course of business, MySpace would play 1 billion songs anyway — whether anyone liked it or not. You'd have to be sleeping with a MySpace flack to think this was a big story.