Late at night on the day Specific Media’s deal to acquire Myspace was announced, Justin Timberlake emailed his longtime manager Johnny Wright and said, “Are you up? My mind is going dizzy with ideas. I need to talk.” But how, exactly, does the boy bander turned budding media mogul plan to do that?
While specific plans won’t be laid out until a press conference is held in August, the early indications are that the site will focus intensely on music and may even become some sort of online musical talent competition, which are all the rage these days in case you haven’t heard.
“Whether it becomes a talent competition or something like that, those are things that we will still flesh out,” Wright told the AP. “We definitely want to bring the industry back to Myspace to really look at the talented people that have put their faces there.”
Interestingly, according to the same AP report, Timberlake’s partnership with Specific Media came together literally at the last minute.
Timberlake’s partnership deal hadn’t been completed until 30 minutes before Specific Media’s Myspace purchase was made public.
It capped a rushed courtship, starting with an idea hatched by Nicole Winnaman, a branding executive who has also worked with Timberlake since his `N Sync days.
She knew the people at Specific Media, including its founding brothers, Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook, and got approval from Wright to explore a partnership two weeks ago.
The Vanderhooks jumped aboard on Thursday last week, without even knowing they’d win the bidding for Myspace.
“It was the Thursday before. They said, `Let’s go, let’s see if we can pull this together,'” Winnaman said.
Wright, Winnaman and the Vanderhooks met Friday last week at Los Angeles International Airport for a meal and conference call with Timberlake, who was in New York. They all met again in New York late Tuesday afternoon, where everyone was “instantaneously aligned,” Winnaman said. Lawyers worked through the night before the deal was announced Wednesday.
Finally, if you’re a fan of Justin Timberlake’s music and you’re wondering when he’s going to get back to making music, he has a message for all of you…
So there.
