News Corp. and the Big Four music labels -- Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI, and Warner Music Group -- announced they intend to provide an online music product that will be positioned as a direct opponent to iTunes. The site is currently labeled MySpace Music. Ad-supported music will be sold likely in addition to a subscription service. One will be able to play music on multiple portable devices including Apple products. The developer of the site has not been disclosed.

Player: News Corp. via MySpace

Surrogate: Big Four music labels

Surrogate Type: Partner: News Corp. is attempting to further differentiate itself from its surging competitor Facebook and enhance its music offering. The Big Four are developing a competitor to iTunes, a partner they are currently dissatisfied with. iTunes profits a percentage of sales that the Big Four believe is too high. With only one legitimate player in the legal music sharing market, that firm, Apple, is able to manipulate suppliers, pricing and technological advancement. In addition, the Big Four would like to benefit more from MySpace’s loyal music followers. Thus, the relationship between the Big Four and MySpace is mutually beneficial and can only succeed with coequal participation of involved parties.

1. Fit/Friction: Friction: The parties are reacting to consumer and market trends, technological advancements and competitor activity.

2. Play Call: Engage/Lure/Challenge

3. Play Run: The Player and Surrogate are entering a market with only one existing player. Their product is a response to public demand and market attractiveness. MySpace Music is an absolute Challenge to iTunes.

4. Pause (publicly): MySpace and the Big Four will gauge feedback from consumers and a variety of industries including entertainment, finance/investing, digital media, search engines, merchandising, etc. Internally the Partners will continue to work to bring the product to market at the appropriate time.

5. No one beyond the involved parties knows with any certainty. This deal is reminiscent of a multitude of “deals” over the last three years in the digital realm. Major players have been scheming of ways to dethrone each other since the widespread adoption of broadband. Many plays made known to the public have failed. For instance, Viacom never launched its MySpace- and Facebook-killer social networking site, MySpace wasn’t able to reconfigure its site to ward off a Facebook onslaught and record labels haven’t figured out how to free themselves from iTunes. Big Four + MySpace against Apple = thriller fit for the big screen.