Last night we hosted a special MySpace Secret Show with legendary performer Willie Nelson at Charlie’s, his hometown bar in Maui to celebrate the release of his new album American Classic. This time, the popular Secret Show series known for connecting fans to the bands they love also connected the legendary Nelson to the Low Country’s premier rock n’ roll outfit, Band of Horses for a special guest performance. Angela Courtin, our SVP of Marketing, Entertainment and Content was on site in Maui – Check out her personal account of the experience.

Driving into the town of Paia, the line at Charlie’s is already snaked around the block. Before we get to the performance – we make a stop by Willie Nelson’s home.

The video team at MySpace has been working hard to build a strong platform for content creators and brands to unite. MySpace Video aggregates the best elements of professional, licensed, and user-generated video content to provide a social environment for users to view and share videos with their friends.

To round out our offering last year we wanted a game show but it wasn’t until Meryl Poster came in for a meeting with her producing partner David Rubin that we knew we’d found one. I knew Meryl while she was president of production at Miramax where she oversaw some incredible movies including Shakespeare in Love, and one of my personal favorites, Good Will Hunting. The scene by the pond, where Robin Williams digs into Matt Damon with, “But you couldn’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel…” is about as good as it gets. Meryl had left Miramax for a deal at NBC and wanted to start a new series ‘BFF’ on the Web – specifically on MySpace.

This has been a big week for MySpace. We announced yesterday that we are welcoming iLike to the MySpace team and we’re excited about how our users and their users will benefit as a result of the two companies coming together. In addition to that, we also announced today that we are working with Media Link to improve our advertising product for our users as well as for our advertising partners.

MySpace has been a leader in social media both with users and advertisers. Delivering on users’ expectations requires that we maintain a balance between content and commerce. Our commitment to innovation and creating a great user experience includes innovating in the advertising space. Media Link, a top media representation and strategic advisory firm founded by Michael Kassan, will provide us with valuable insight on the larger advertising market and what the most forward thinking marketers require.

I’m happy to announce this morning that MySpace has entered into an agreement to acquire iLike.

In just two years, iLike has become the most popular music application across all social networks. With 55 million users and 1.5 billion monthly impressions, their growth speaks directly to the usability of the product, the technology behind it, and the great team that built it.