Foos, Weezer Try MySpace

As All-American Rejects tour the country, guitarist Nick Wheeler is constantly confronted by people who say they know him. "Kids you've never met before know your dog's name -- they know things my parents don't know," he says. The reason is MySpace.com, a social-networking site, where millions of young music fans go to listen to new tunes and find out more about their favorite bands. Wheeler is not complaining. "We're getting 30,000 people a day listening to our song on MySpace. It's blowing my mind."

Launched in 2003 with just seven employees, MySpace has become the fourth-highest-trafficked Web site (after Yahoo!, eBay and MSN), with 35 million members, and in July, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. paid $580 million to acquire its parent company. On November 15th, MySpace Records, in partnership with Interscope, will release its first CD, a compilation featuring site faves Weezer, Dashboard Confessional and Fall Out Boy. The first band the label signed, rap-rockers Hollywood Undead, also appear on the disc. Their debut is expected in the spring.

Bands use the site in innovative ways: Foo Fighters offered a podcast on the making of their latest album, In Your Honor; Weezer and Nine Inch Nails have streamed new music before its release; Coldplay uploaded exclusive footage from their tour of Japan; and unsigned acts use it to reach fans and record labels. "Any way you do business in music has been affected by MySpace," says the company's president, Tom Anderson. "We hear from bands that have places to stay on tour because they meet people online. They're able to book venues, they're able to fill them. A&R are using it to find bands, MTV is using it to find people for reality shows, and the movie industry is using it to find bands for soundtracks."

Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional uses MySpace to post music and communicate with fans. "It's the first place people go now," he says. "If they heard a Dashboard song they wouldn't go to my site to check it out, they'd go to MySpace. It's the world's most powerful marketing tool at the moment."