Guess who’s back, back again?

Remember that time when your ‘ex’ showed up at the same bar as you and looked a lot uglier than you remembered?

Well, Myspace is not your ex. Myspace is the kid you liked in middle school, who was a nerd in high school, and then showed up at a bar years later—way hotter. What am I rambling on about!?

Through responsive, sleek, user-friendly interface design, clean and comfortable usability and in-your-face photos, Myspace is getting all up in your space, in the sexiest new light.

As the great David Bowie says, “Ch-ch-channgessss, turn and face the strange.”

But seriously, what is so great about the new Myspace design (aside from Justin Timberlake being all, “Yo, Myspace is where it’s at. Dirty pop your way back here.”)?

Platforms like Pinterest (36,000 sign-ups in its first week), Instagram (two million users in its first six weeks) and Spotify which each reached a remarkable amount of users during the first weeks of launching, taught designers and developers a valuable lesson: users like their content like Ricky Bobby likes his cars—fast and easy.

Myspace’s new design offers a user experience similar to favorite platforms of today, yet challenges the leading competitors of the social space. 

1. Navigation that can easily be accessed in multiple areas of your screen.
2. A multivariable search function that categorizes and aggregates songs, artists, albums  and videos.
3. Real-time interaction and music-mix sharing with friends.
4. Multiple ways to personalize your page using music mixes and large cover photos, so you can show the world, including your favorite artists, what speaks to you.

It’s obvious that design wise, Myspace is just like heaven. However, some may say we have Spotify to listen to music, YouTube to view it and Facebook to blabber on about it (and whatever else we want), so the question design alone can’t answer is, ‘why will people use or return to the new digs?’

Timberlake believes Myspace will be especially useful for it’s music-loving audience. According to JT, artists will discover more about their fans, and in turn, discover more about themselves. This is why he believes the “quality of engagement” will be more rewarding.

Being a music lover myself, I can’t wait to take a break from new- born baby posts, and engagement ring photos on platforms such as Facebook. I don’t mind Myspace coming here, and wasting all my time. In fact, I know I could spend hours creating the perfect music mix, sharing it with my music-loving friends, and reading about my favorite music makers.

Time will tell if this platform will break or bust, but it can’t hurt to give it a try. If Myspace is not something you previously enjoyed, at least give it a chance. If anything, it’s design is worth viewing. Maybe it’s just what you, oh underground-music lover you, needed?

Want to check out my mixes that will contribute to your ‘ear-gasms’ (including the songs mentioned throughout this post)? Well, you have to have a beta account. However, Santy may just be giving a few of those away very soon. Comment if interested!

Cheers,

Joey Brandt - Jr. Digital Art Director

https://new.myspace.com/brohanna

http://vimeo.com/50071857

Sleep is something I did not indulge in last night. While some were adventuring in the Land of Nod, I was restlessly tossing and turning; ruminating about the day to come. I was nervous, but mostly excited about my first day at Santy Integrated.

I have made quite a few observations about Santy in the short amount of time I’ve been here, but there is one thing that impresses me the most: The number of young, successful and talented women employed here. Only three men are employed at Santy, including the president and CEO. The average age of all the women that work here, including myself, is only 27.6 years old. I am incredibly excited to immerse myself in a company run by determined, ambitious, and not to mention, stylish women. Although our lunch hour was dictated by the latest episode of “The Bachelorette” and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” the minute we all entered our desks, the room was silenced and the only conversation shared was about work.

I am not saying that the men at Santy are any less talented than the women or that I am any less impressed with them. What I am saying is that as a young professional female and recent graduate, I sincerely look up to women around me and am eager to make myself known as one of the many accomplished and driven people on the Santy Team.

Who runs the world? Girls.

Cheers,

Jena

How many of my fellow seventeen year old classmates are at the beach, playing video games or sleeping right now? A lot. How many are sitting in front of a desk at an ad agency entering client and sales data into Microsoft Excel? I’ll have to get back to you with that statistic. If you haven’t guessed yet, I fall into the second demographic mentioned. My name is Jackson Santy; I’m an incoming senior at Brophy College Preparatory and am Santy Integrated’s newest intern. There are many reasons why I’m sitting at this desk right now as opposed to lying on a beach surrounded by friends. One may or may not be the fact that I owe a certain elder member of my family $1200 for a recent trip abroad to El Salvador with my classmates at Brophy. But all kidding aside, I am here on my own free will and not as a victim of indentured servitude. The reason I’m here is because of a word incomprehensible for many teenagers, “proactivity.” Sure I’m not relaxing on an Oceanside paradise right now. Instead I’m building up my resume, preparing for the world of employment and getting a head start on internships before entering college. In my mind that beats getting sun burnt and covered in sand any day…or so my father tells me.

Jackson Santy,

Intern           

Santy’s Motto.

Here at Santy, we firmly agree in having fun, while working hard too.

TGIF! Here’s a creative that never saw the light of day, but that we love anyway. We hope that you have a great weekend!

Brands will operate in the age of tumultuous opportunity and permanently uncertain times, where chaos is normal. Santy believes one thing is certain, success depends more on what we do today than what the world does to us tomorrow.

We truly could care less about social media, web sites, apps or the declining/changing media landscape individually. What we do care about is making brands relevant to the consumers who can’t wait to buy their stuff. Of course creating this relevancy will integrate some or all of the available platforms above.

Our approach, Activating Brand Communities paired with Santy’s Social Branding model unlocks the brands holy grail, Social Intelligence. We create relevant and compelling programs that get fans/friends/lovers to engage with the brand in exchange for insights, interests and detailed psychographic profiles, along with a plethora of other information about the community. This then becomes the foundation for new strategies and more relevant programs to generate brand preference in real time.

But, brands must have the discipline to simplify engagements, test and measure efficacy, then repeat.

-Dan,

CEO/President

As you may have noticed, a large majority of popular television shows now include a hashtag in the corner of the screen. While this may seem trivial, the results may surprise you. ABC Family’s show “Pretty Little Liars” generated 534,000 tweets during the one-hour season three premiere, including 100,000 tweets during the first five minutes (according to social media tracking site SocialGuide). That’s 333 tweets per second. We’re in a new wave of “the three screens”  - goodbye to the days of multitasking watching television, checking your mobile device and surfing the net - we are now combining and sharing these experiences across all platforms. My friends now know who I think Emily should give the final rose to (#bachelorette pick Sean!!!), discuss the latest episode of Family Guy, and argue about who should have been voted MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew (cough, Mos Wanted Crew). Brands should take note from TV - you will not only gain impression share (Pretty Little Liar’s social engagement catapulted the show to 1.7 million viewers during the season three premiere) but you will also build a strong base of brand advocates. So the next time you’re working on a TV commercial or a digital campaign, ask yourself: #WWTVD?

-Holly,

Account Supervisor