Today really is the end of an era.
Myspace Australia is set to officially close its doors at the end of the month - January 31^st 2011 to be precise. Until then, staff are sending out those final emails, tidying up those desks and easing the photos and posters off the walls. And whilst I no longer work for them and haven’t for 4 months – I still feel sad at hearing this news, especially after spending 4 years of my life there.

Make no mistake, it has been an incredible ride, not just for me but for the vast majority of individuals involved in the company. For all the external Myspace-bashing, there was an attitude and tangible sense of belief internally that everyone was part of something innovative and ground-breaking, a genuine pioneer in the digital realm. And from 2006-2008 that was actually very true. I would actually have people in the street offer me money to buy any Myspace merch I had, a bag, hat or hoodie – it was that popular!

Initially, there were three of us Rebekah Horne, Alexandra Fletcher and myself, the 3 amigos, 3 people in the right place, at the right time – the very foundation of Myspace in Australia. I even remember my first day in the job, making a phone call and introducing myself as “Alex from Myspace” and the response was “Sorry…from where?”

8 months later 3.5 million Australians were using the site on a weekly basis.

In the preceding 4 years, I had the opportunity to work out of Los Angeles, Texas, Auckland, Adelaide and Melbourne – I saw parts of the world, I probably would never have seen or experienced in any other circumstance. They empowered me by giving me the freedom to grow as an individual, to take risks, to be proactive and really challenge the conventional way of thinking within the Australian media landscape.

It’s those valuable lessons that I learnt during those early years, that have had a tremendous influence on my career since, and most likely always will. A true baptism of fire into a challenging, fast-paced, controversial and dynamic environment driven by sheer mass hysteria and bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch. And it’s those memories and moments, which will always allow me to look back on those formative years at Myspace with fondness and affection.

It was like a little family in a lot of ways, peaking in mid 2008 at around 50 people – long hours, parties, music blaring all the time, no dress code, VIP invites, secret shows, celebrity interviews, launch events…everything you would expect from an entertainment site, except that everyone who worked for the company, literally lived and breath it. I’ve made some genuine friends for life through the Myspace Family, for me, that really says it all about the team dynamic in those early days.

We all believed and knew we were part of something truly special. Young upstarts, empowered, ready to take on the traditional forms of media armed with internet acronyms & jargon, that famous US swagger and army of emo kids chanting our name as we walked out onto the big stage.

And then in early 2009, Facebook happened.

For all the talk of the arrogance of upper management, the greed of FOX (and it’s insistence of plastering every page with ads) through to the utter lack of vision by the key stakeholders – the real reason Facebook won, wasn’t because Myspace made errors, it was because it didn’t feel the need to adapt.

Look at the odds against Facebook, Myspace had music, videos, local partnerships, mobile integration, millions of bands, four times as many users, the marketing sway of the FOX media empire, 22 international offices and $900 million in cash from Google.

And Facebook still won out. You can’t deny that is impressive.

But how did they do it? How did they set the sun on what had up until that point been the golden era for MySpace?

They did so in 5 ways and not surprisingly, all of them are product related:

1. The Stream – All your friends activity in one continuous stream, updated every minute.

2. Real Names – Facebook forced you to sign up using your own name, which made it much easier to find people you knew, rather than guess their online nickname.

3. Email Verification - They made you verify your email address, this way you got constant alerts and notifications driving you back to the site.

4. Address Book Importer – Rather than searching for friends, you could import your Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail contacts and instantly be paired with them, in effect shifting your entire network across. If you weren’t registered, they sent you an email alerting you to the fact I’d joined and you should too.

5. Built To Scale – It was designed with one central theme, to be a functional stable social network that would rival all others.

Myspace on the other hand, had no real-time stream. It allowed anyone with a fake name or email address to sign up and the only way you can find your friends on the network, was by manually typing their name in. If they had used the name ‘DanTheMan’ rather than ‘Dan Brown’ there was no way to find them. By the time Myspace had duplicated all the features of Facebook, they’d already lost ¾ of the battle.

The rest then came down to design, usability and marketing. No surprises for who won there.

Myspace was never built to have 110 million users at its peak, purely because founders Tom Anderson & Chris DeWolfe never envisaged it growing so rapidly. Amusingly enough, the ability to actually customize your page was a coding loophole that a user exploited originally. The company then decided to use it as the point of difference in the market. It was that very same ability to customize your profile, which would later become their downfall as millions upon millions of hideous fluro profiles, loaded with dozens of animated gifs crashed browsers around the world.

As Myspace’s audience grew to phenomenal levels after breaking into the mainstream (it was at one point the biggest website in the US), it then began the ill-fated attempt to appeal to all the different demographics using the site. A mile wide and an inch deep was the internal mantra. It morphed into a music site, a video channel, a blogging platform, an email client, a place to share photos, a forum, an instant messaging client, even a toolbar in your browser – hundreds of communities within communities from horoscopes to art, fashion through to surfing advice all housed on the one domain.

Everyone had something to play with.

The reality though, was a clunky, buggy, bloated, complex and incoherent mash up of poorly designed products without any tangible theme to hold it together. They thought they were untouchable and in the process, stopped innovating and started stagnating instead.

Facebook were the polar opposite, laser focused on one thing – enabling you to discover and stay up to date with your family and friends.

It’s similar to comparing Apple and the simplicity of their iPod verses Windows and their pointless feature-packed Windows Media Player that always crashes.

And then one day, (as predicted by just about everyone who didn’t work at Myspace) it happened – Facebook overtook in terms of traffic and users, first internationally and then in the US.

You would never hear this in the press, for all the talk of declining audiences, poor design and spam bots crippling the site – working in that environment in 2009 during the rise of Facebook, everyone was genuinely ready for the fight. We had a signed sealed and delivered contract from the 4 major record labels to host their entire music catalogues, they didn’t. We put on free concerts & movie screenings for our users, they didn’t. We helped Kevin Rudd launch his election campaign, they didn’t. We told you what bands were going to make it, they didn’t.

But Facebook literally never looked back. They had won through sheer simplicity.

Fast-forward another year and it is here where we end up today – with mass redundancies, skeleton staff and a site a mere shadow of its former glory. A team who’s motivation faded some time ago, a site re-launch meant to inspire in October 2010, but which has been so underwhelming and dismal that it’s resulted in 50% of staff being laid off. All that remains, is a very uncertain future and talk of a fire sale. It has been a dramatic fall from grace, with different CEO’s, leaders, views, visions and politics all playing their part in the past 2 years decline.

But in the end, if you look at it objectively, innovation and product won. And whilst that’s not necessarily a good thing if you’re a Myspace employee right now – it’s a good thing for the web as whole.

Myspace was a moment in time, it literally changed the way the world communicated. It changed the way you and I discovered music and above all, it brought the whole world just that little bit closer together.

I will always enjoy and be eternally grateful for having played a very small role in that.

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Wow so i last checked in here, was way back on February 15th – that’s 58 days ago to be precise.

But what 58 days they have been.

Spanning 4 different countries, over 20,000km, soaked in tears, immersed in laughter and joined together by seemingly countless airport lounges, surreal situations and mixed with a healthy dose of syncronicity. It has proved to be without question, one of the most dramatic periods in my life, a sharp shifting of focus and a stern reminder that change, with all it’s trappings of fear, excitement and unknown, is inevitable.

I don’t really know where or how I can begin, because in my mind, to truly grasp the enormity of the past 58 days, you’d have to have stood in my shoes, juggling with a whirlwind of emotions each and every second, finding yourself at a loss to explain any of it.

But I suppose one should start attempt to start at the beginning, So it is from here, that I shall try my best to sum up this series of unusual and unexpected events.

Thursday February 18th 2010

After working in the same company for nearly 4 years and in fact being one of it’s 3 founding members – over the past few months I’ve found myself hitting a glass ceiling. That I’m not challenged as an individual, nor growing as a person – either in my knowledge, position or salary. And trust me, I work seriously hard – I always have.

Someone once said to me that my current work isn’t a job, it’s a lifestyle and it’s very very true. But when you put so much into something, you want something equal in return and like I say, for some time now I feel I’ve been giving and getting nothing back. Promotions and opportunities always seem to pass me by. Clearly I’m either doing something wrong, because I have been given numerous promises and false starts, all of which have lead to a dead end.

So I sat down with the General Manager (who has since been axed interestingly enough) and told him my concerns, that I didn’t want to leave, but that I felt isolated, lacking any direction, I wasn’t inspired and after 4 years – I really need a shift, something to excite me, something to drive me and stretch my abilities – something that would allow me to tap into my potential in a tangible way.

It was the meeting, where I thought they would understand me, appreciate my situation and be fully aware of the commitment, passion and sound work I’ve provided since day dot. After all, I’d gone from 3 people the golden era, to 60 people and red tape, survived 3 office moves and countless redundancies. But here I sit, 4 years on, doing exactly the same thing – when everyone around me, is either new or getting promoted. I’m the go to guy, who isn’t going anywhere.

So this was the meeting, where I was expecting a roadmap, where I would be included, what my new role would be and how it will be implemented.

Instead it ended like this.

GM “As companies become more and more corporate – everyone finds their own niche, everyone has a very specific job. Like a cog in a wheel.”

ME “I don’t want to be ‘a cog’ in a wheel, that sounds really demeaning. That’s not who I am. I’m more than that and I deserve better than that. I know I can offer more than just work by numbers, clocking in, clocking out and merely doing a job.”

GM “How long have you been working here?

ME “Nearly 4 years. Twice as long as you. You tell me, if you were in my position, after 48 months in the same role, aged 28 seeing everyone around you getting promoted and praised, when you trained, helped and guided them there – what would you do?”

GM “Well some people aren’t meant for the corporate environment. Some people thrive in the start-up mentality of being across multiple areas and getting their hands dirty, I know a lot of people that have left companies to join start ups. If that’s something you’re keen on, we can make that work for you. To be frank, if you were me, I’d think it was time to move on and look for another job. You’re role will change and become automated in the coming months as it is.”

And therein ended the meeting.

I couldn’t actually believe what I was hearing, that essentially we know you’ve outgrown your role, but we can’t do anything about it, we don’t see why would should and frankly we’d prefer it, if that’s your attitude if you left. The outcome, was the polar opposite of what I was expecting. After giving so much to a company, for them to turn around and say that I either assume my position as a cog, or leave utterly astounded me. One of the internal mantras is “We always hold onto and promote our best people.” and for them to willingly let me go, made me feel utterly insignificant, deeply sadden, foolish and unwanted.

That’s a hard gig for anyone to accept, least of all someone like me who always gives 110% in whatever I do. So I ended up going outside, walking down an alleyway and bursting into tears, because for me, everything that I had though and hoped for – turned out to be the complete opposite. They didn’t care about me, nor my development or growth, they simply cared about keeping the wheel turning. There would be another cog, to replace this outspoken one should it be needed.

I went home that night, thoroughly dejected and at a loss to see where or what I’d done wrong – but now safe in the knowledge, that if they didn’t want me, then I didn’t want them either.

Monday February 22nd 2010 (3 days later)

Those wheels of change continued to rotate and creaked into motion, first thing the following Monday, this time via my inbox.

After dating for over a year, and without any warning, my girlfriend decided it was best if we broke up. There was nothing sinister about it, she simply came to the conclusion things had run their course, even if I didn’t at the time. Over the past 12 months, was I good boyfriend? Definitely. Could I have been a better boyfriend? Unquestionably. I genuinely can’t pinpoint the reason we broke up to a specific event or situation – the time had come it seemed, to simply move on

We had a fantastic ride along the way though, we really really did – some of our memories will stay with me forever. We had a deep shared interest in art, fashion, movies and music, but ultimately none of it proved enough to make it a longstanding union – sometimes you just have to accept the situation for what it truly is.

She taught me so many things, many of them indirectly, about how the world isn’t always black and white, that less is more, that being subtle and shy are two totally different things, how sometimes its ok to not be 100% in control, to see where life takes you, and that above all, how you should always strive to do something that makes you happy. That sound obvious I know, but it’s easy to lose sight of that at times, it’s easy to get caught up in other people’s demands of you and be swayed by the lure of what’s expected.

But when I reflect on the time she and I spent together, the experienced we shared, the funny conversations we had, our common bond and secret love for lame rom-coms – I do so, without any regret, ill feeling or sense of injustice. It’s always a very sad and disheartening situation when you break up, especially with someone you have vast affection for and after such a long time. Yet there’s no easy way to tell someone you don’t love them anymore, either way you’re both going to get hurt. And whilst receiving the news via an e-mail wasn’t ideal – and after countless nights staring at the ceiling wondering we could have done differently, in the long run I think she inevitably made the right choice.

She’s now on a different path and I’m on an different trajectory entirely, but all you can ask for anyone you truly care about, is that they find happiness both within themselves and with someone who will love them equally. Two people that give each other butterflies every time they see one another. We had that, yet somewhere along the line, lost it.

But I do hope one day she will once again feel those fuzzy butterflies swirling around her tummy  and on that occasion, be able to hold onto them for good.

Wednesday February 24th (2 days later)

A mere two days later, at 10am as I sat at my desk staring out across Sydney’s rooftops, I got a hurried SMS from Jules (my Dad’s wife) along the lines of “Need to speak ASAP”. 6 weeks previously, I was with my Dad in the UK celebrating his birthday, wedding and bringing in the New Year. As many of you know, he was in poor health then, but the worst case was that he would have another 3-6 months. I told him that I would come back, to be by his side during those last few days.

But I never got the chance.

I left the office (walking down the same street after my ill-fated meeting with the boss) and made the call to the UK. I expected to hear “He’s suddenly got worse, you should come back soon.”

When I answered all I heard was

“Hey Alex, I’m so sorry but your Dad died today. Peacefully in bed with Beth and I by his side. I was talking to him and I said, if you want to go, you can…he squeezed my hand and with that he took a deep breath and exhaled. The curtain near the open window shifted at the very moment and we both knew that his spirit had literally floated out of the room. It was so peaceful. Tonight, when you’re by yourself, I’m telling everyone who knew him, to raise a glass to the sky and gave him one final toast – as he sets out on his next sailing adventure or hunt up there.” and then she and I both dissolved into tears, broken words and unfinished sentences.

I can’t really describe the sheer weight news like that has on you, it’s as if everything literally becomes frozen in time. The world stops spinning and everything falls silent. You’re standing there just reeling from it, as a myriad of emotions pan around you – like some unnaturally lucid dream.

As the tears started to seep into the screen of my BlackBerry, I messaged my boss and said “My Dad just died. Going home.” and I didn’t return to my desk for 4 weeks. I literally just left everything hanging in midair, stumbled home in an utter daze and booked my flights.

So there you have it, the first chapter as it were – as I recount these past 58 days.

6 days into it, a boss who didn’t care, a girlfriend who decided I wasn’t the one and a father who was given the timely and gentle release of death. They say change happens in three’s, but even I found that all just too much to handle, I was utterly overwhelmed and overpowered by it all. Each area of my life, suddenly was filled with frustration, sadness and loss in the space of six dramatic unexpected days.

Not the ideal way to start 2010 admittedly, but trust me – things do get a little better in my next chapter. They couldn’t get much worse after all.

Thanks, as always, for taking the time and for being here for me,



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Marilyn Manson has just released his brand new video for the track ‘Running To The Edge Of The World’ which is from his recently released record ‘The High End Of Low’.

A word of warning, the clip isn’t for the faint of hearted. It was directed by the man himself in a hotel room and needless to say….it doesn’t disappoint.

You can watch it below, or by clicking here

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The long weekend here in Australia has drawn to a close (I took an extra day off at the end to give myself an even longer break) and I’m pleased to report it’s been a productive and interesting break on the Western front.

I get repeatedly told to maintain the ‘work / life’ balance, so any opportunity to catch ones breath, stretch your arms and spend quality time with family and friends should always be embraced. So that’s predominantly what I did (along with sleeping in and making gin & tonics for my friends).

It’s scary actually how easy it is to disconnect from the world when you constantly revolve around in your little work bubble, thinking of nothing more than dealing with that next e-mail.

Speaking of which, roughly 1,095 days since I started my current job, I’ve finally been promoted. Now whilst I won’t be able to afford a penthouse in New York JUST yet ( hehe that will come), for once in my life, I have the means to reduce the stress of living paycheck to paycheck. An unfortunate trait I’ve had to live with throughout my entire working life, due to the high cost of inner city living and the even high costs of paying rent to be there.

It’s undoubtedly a great achievement to get promoted (especially during the current economic climate) but it’s been somewhat tainted with an over-riding sense from everyone that I’ve spoken to, despite their elation, that it’s been long long over-due.

I’m glad it has finally happened, after 3 years of steadfast loyalty, in the same role, constantly exceeding it and working tirelessly during that time, I think any reasonable individual would expect some form of pay-off and tangible recognition, not just a token “Thanks for all your hard work this week” and a pat on the back.

I’m relieved that it has finally happened and that I can move forward, knowing that the company does value me and has made a concerted effort to secure my future. Above all, it gives you a renewed sense of confidence when you’re seen as having the ability to play a pivotal role, in the future direction of the business.

Ultimately, that is what everyone who cares about and is good at their jobs wants –  a place at the table, to get taken seriously and have their input seen as credible and reliable.

I’m particularly thankful that I wasn’t forced into a position where I had to look at moving jobs, because it was genuinely looking that way for while. No matter how much enjoy working for a company, or appreciate being part of a charismatic team, the need to grow your skills, challenge yourself and expand your horizons will eventually take precedent.

And as my previous post alluded to, sometimes change is just inevitable one way or another.

In saying that, I hope I would never become like this guy lol (can’t see the video below? Click here)

I’d also like to thank everyone who has sent me a message, e-mailed, spoken to me in person to or phoned in with congratulations, it means a tremendous amount to me, it really does

You can always mark the sign of a true friend, when they share the same levels excitement and relief as you do and I’m very lucky to have so many of you that care about me, I forget that sometimes.

It has been an epic emotional roller-coaster over the past several months, but to the select individuals that have been with me from day dot, through the dark days and by my side 24/7 (you know who you are)……… an extra little special thank-you x

I also have some other news (which I’m going to be deliberately vague about!)  For a few weeks now I’ve been working in the background on a brand new project with a few friends of mine.

Master Blueprints for the forthcoming Space Rocket

Now anyone who has been to my house could be forgiven in thinking that I was building a space rocket in secret,  what with all of the notepads, diagrams and scribbles dotted on various unkempt bits of paper floating around!

(It’s not a space rocket by the way.)

I don’t want to jinx things or give away too much information (sometimes less is more) but it’s something to get really excited about. There are a few of us all working together on it. We want to make something really special, unique and well frankly, just really really fucking cool. I wanted to mention it now, so that in the future, we can look back on this entry as the start of it all.

I’ll tell you more about it, as we get nearer a launch date (which is still some months away) – but I genuinely hope you love it, because I know I do and we haven’t even started putting it together yet haha.

Your friend,



Follow @alexwain

p.s. I also went and saw these guys play last Monday (June 1st) if you haven’t heard of them by now, where the hell have you been lol

So the inevitable day has finally happened – GeoCities is officially shutting its doors and going offline. This is the same site that was bought by Yahoo back in 1999 for a staggering $3.57 BILLION US dollars and at the time, was home to 1.1 million users. As a modern day comparison, Rupert Murdoch acquired MySpace in July 2005 for $580 million and it came with 120 million users.

Look at this fantastic time-line of its beginnings and its final end.

I owe a lot to GeoCities, I really do. My first pen friend even came as the result of being on GeoCities, I can’t remember her name but she was from Canada and we use to write each other letters – then I think we both ended up getting a life haha. But memories like that never fail to bring a smile to my face. Without the genuine impact GeoCities had on my life, I probably wouldn’t be in my current career.

I learnt so much from that site, from uploading onto the Internet itself (which blew my mind at the time) through to data management, hyper-linking, animated gifs (remember the spinning e-mail envelope?), different file types, blogs, bulletins, forums, avatars all of which seem so commonplace now in the current world of social-networking. 

I always found it inherently interesting and appealing, web design mixes logic with creativity, a combination which is often hard to find in the workplace. So it doesn’t really surprise me that I’ve ended up where I am. There’s no doubt in my mind that it was GeoCities that set the wheels in motion.

To give you a brief background to GeoCities, they were the first outlet which allowed you to create your own website without any complex HTML knowledge, your very own Internet webpage. You could custom it to an extent using their WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor and it was all for free, no hosting fees, all ad driven and supported.

Of course the pages were shockingly awful, as it was the first experience many people had ever had with personalizing and populating the Internet. However, it will always be the first avenue where people legitimately had the power to express themselves, in a worldwide community. Check out some  worst sites on the net.

I vividly remember sitting in the collage IT department building a GeoCities page for my band. You can see what I was doing aged 16 here (Whilst some of the images are broken, the links still work – it’s an illuminating trip into the mindset of 16 year old wannabe rockstar let me tell you!)

There was a real innocence about it then, a whole new frontier of discovery. Unlike nowadays where people grow up not knowing what it was like BEFORE the Internet existed. That notion really does make me feel old, the reality that I was around before Google haha.

So here’s to you GeoCitiess, for all you’ve done, for everything you allowed us to do, for opening so many doors and most of all for all those memories which have shape how we use the Internet today.

The existence of GeoCities will always go hand in hand with the birth of the Internet for me – I’m sad to see it go.

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Hey Everyone,

I’ve just updated MySpace Arts & Culture with some new artwork – honestly the imagination and creativity I see each week from people on the site utterly blows my mind.

This week I chose to feature a guy called Joshua Clay, who is just immense – I wish I could have 1/10th of his talent. You can view his artwork here.

Check out more artists & view brand new artwork on myspace right here.

Alex

Omen

What do you think?
Alex

Devildriver

I’m off to go and see these guys live with 36 Crazyfists Sydney next month – let me see those devil horns!

DevilDriver – I Could Care Less

From AllMusic.com
DevilDriver has amplified every facet of their sound. They’ve turned their backs on the kind of plodding melodic obviousness that kills credibility on the raging metal side, instead hardwiring a vicious catchiness right into the guitar lines and Fafara’s esophageal grind. Drummer John Boecklin slays on “Bear Witness Unto” and in the furious time-shifts of opener “End of the Line”; actually, Boecklin pretty much slays throughoutFury. “Grinf**cked,” besides having the best name on the record, also exemplifies DevilDriver’s union of black melody to razor-sharp playing. “Pale Horse Apocalypse” is a traditionalist thrash workout, and “Before the Hangman’s Noose” approaches the hard-tack American metal of Lamb of God.

The slower pace, spiritualism, and double bass tussles of “Sin & Sacrifice” seem like a tribute to European metal. Fury of Our Maker’s Hand is such a severe turn away from the falter of their first album — and a turn toward something hungry, focused, and ready to be devoured by metal faithful everywhere — that DevilDriver may have made their true debut the second time around.

Listen to them on their official MySpace page.

Alex

She Wants Revenge

I remember when I first started working at MySpace, the very first band I found on the site was called ‘She Wants Revenge’ and I’ve loved them ever since. They are currently unsigned, but were formerly on Interscope records.

Here’s a bit about them from AllMusic.com

“Los Angeles DJs Justin Warfield and Adam “Adam 12″ Bravin formed the moody, Joy Division-inspired She Wants Revenge in 2003. A fortuitous combination of word of mouth, industry connections, and airplay on Sirius Satellite Radio and West Coast airwave giant KCRW provided the duo with enough exposure to snag a record deal with Geffen, resulting in a 2006 self-titled release that has drawn comparisons to Interpol, early Depeche Mode, and the Bravery, as well as their aforementioned eternally depressed post-punk heroes from England. After touring with Depeche Mode, they returned with 2007′s This Is Forever.”

Watch one of their best tracks here, it stars Shirley Manson of the band Garbage.

She Wants Revenge – These Things

And visit and add them as a friend over on their official MySpace profile

Hope you like!

Alex