High street giant HMV is hoping to take advantage of the online community by launching its own social networking website. HMV hopes that its new site will allow members to sign up and share their music tastes with other members by importing their own MP3 files directly to the website.

The social networking website is called ‘Get Closer’ and is now being tested by just 1,000 beta testers. HMV hopes to launch the website on September 1st.

When users upload their own music they become linked to other members with similar tastes in something HMV is calling a ‘Spider Cloud’, based on the music genre, the artists and indeed the films they share an interest in.

The chief executive of HMV, Simon Fox, said:

We will then match you up with similar people. It’s all about connections and collections.

HMV is looking to online music as CD sales have been dropping in sales in stores, resulting in the high street retailer reducing the floor space it devotes to CD.

HMV hope to fund the website through advertising revenues.

In the coming months the amount of music made available on MP3 via download with DRM removed is expected to increase. DRM means Digital Rights Management, which is a form of copyright protection, reducing the way users can copy music from the MP3 players to their PCs and other formats.