Coheed and Cambria Official: Mic Todd leaves tour, tour goes on.

It’s confirmed. Former Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, Owen Van Natta is now the newly named CEO of Myspace (who replaced MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe last week). 

Adding to the “new changing of the guard”, The Wall Street Journal confirmed yesterday, Myspace officially announced two new appointments, former AOL exec Mike Jones as COO, and Jason Hirschhorn (former Chief Digital Officer at MTV Networks) as Chief Product Officer.

“I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to build upon the successes of the company’s founders and am eager to work with Owen and Jon and the rest of the incredible management team at MySpace as we enter this exciting new phase in the company’s already revered history,” said Mike Jones in Myspace’s official press release. Jason Hirschhorn continued, “MySpace is one of the most alluring innovations of our time and I am honored to collaborate with Tom Anderson and the rest of the MySpace team to take what is already a stellar product into its next evolution.”

The changes in Myspace likely indicates the desire to be more technically savvy, like its competitor Facebook, which means Myspace won’t be counted out in the social media space just yet. 

Marketing Translation = “NIN GeoTargeting” (but in this case,  instead of ads, the promotion of the “NIN brand”). 

The features on this artist-centric NIN iPhone and iPod app includes the opportunity for fans to have access to exclusive NIN up-to-the-minute content. Die-hard NIN fans can now claim bragging rights on being among the first to check out new NIN photos, music (redirected to YouTube), tour dates, show updates, chats, forums, and even utilize the GPS function that allows them to connect with fellow NIN fans (that’s right people, now you can go trolling for other Reznor fans within a 50 mile radius).

The app neatly aggregates content from NIN.com conveniently into your iPhone in a super slick interface (after all, this is Trent Reznor we’re talking about). NIN are treating their iPhone app as if it’s an extension of their website, and like a 21st century version of a fan club. 

From an objective perspective, the verdict is still out on whether this app serves any real utilitarian purpose like we’ve seen with other music apps (e.g. Shazam, Coachella, Pandora), but we do appreciate Reznor and crew giving it “a good College try” into being early adopters of the social media space. 

And for those NIN Blackberry users out there, don’t despair, the band will be “investigating” Blackberry and Android versions next. 

NAME: nin: access (iPhone/iPod app)

COST: Free

New Facebook brand pages, (now referred to as “Public Profiles”) is the best thing to happen for artist promotion since the introduction of Myspace.

Why? Because you can now totally customize your profile to direct your fans to a landing page of what you’re trying to promote right now! Also with this new version of FB, when brands post news, it will appear directly in your fan’s news feed (seamlessly integrated with their other “real” friend’s news). Oh, and let’s not forget the Status Updates option (i.e. room to insert friendly humor here).

It’s like having your very own “mini website” in the world, wide web of Facebook!