I saw this brief blurb on Om’s blog talking about the upcoming launch of MySpace’s IM application. My guess is that this thing will be a hit and it is just another example of how MySpace is really moving away from being a simple hub to being a more complete “lifestyle” application for the demographic they target.
I think this is also really interesting in terms of what it means for both big and small companies looking to partner with MySpace. To date, MySpace has shown a real reticence to partner with larger, more established companies when it comes to providing tools and services to its user base. The IM client appears to be coming from a relatively small 3rd party. I am not sure who built their video uploading service, but it wasn’t any of the web 2.0 “majors” out there in the hosted user-generated content space. MySpace is becoming a pretty powerful brand it looks like they don’t really see the need to partner with other strong or emerging brands to deliver new functionality to their users.