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MySpace Brings Its Karaoke Service to Japan

by Chad Mumm on March 31, 2009 at 05:48 PM



In a mix that goes together like sushi and sake, social networking giant MySpace is finally bringing its interactive karaoke feature to Japan.

Way back in the halcyon days of April 2008, MySpace rolled out MySpace Karaoke, which let users upload audio (and later, in October, video) of themselves singing to a large catalog of tunes. We hailed it as a new dawn for self-obsessed lunatics, now able to entertain the rest of the world with their awesome badness. Due to licensing and copyright issues, Japan was spared the international humiliation until now. We're pretty sure that, for most Japanese folks, it's not a moment too soon, seeing as approximately 50 million of the country's citizens do karaoke.

MySpace Karaoke boss Nimrod Lev told the AFP that he had previously assumed launching online karaoke in Japan would be akin to "selling ice to Eskimos," which, to us, sounds like a gross oversimplification (and a cliched analogy). It winds up, though, that Lev has been pleasantly surprised by the Web site's already warm reception.

So, now, all the hopeful Honshu crooners out there can get their jam on to thousands of songs, adapted and licensed specifically for Japanese users. We're just hoping that the videos posted by our East Asian allies make it to the American site for us to enjoy, as well. [From: Google News]

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Tags: japan, karaoke, myspace, singing

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