MySpace India, which as been live since January, has finally been “officially” launched: there’s a gig today in Mumbai featuring Pentagram, The Super Fuzz, Them Clones, followed by an after-party featuring The Raghu Dixit Project, Shaair and Func and Swarathma. MySpace is also planning a Developer Platform workshop in Bangalore on April 21. MySpace had launched a Korean site earlier this week.

MySpace’s Chief Operating Officer Amit Kapur was in Mumbai for the launch, and I spoke to him and Tarun Tripathi, Director of Marketing and Content for India, about monetization, plans for hiring, content deals and more:

Why India? Are monetization pressures forcing MySpace to go international?: Kapur feels there’s a strong alignment between MySpace and India - MySpace is a platform for self expression and content is centred around users, and Indians are open and self expressive. India is an economy that’s starting to boom, and MySpace wants to be here for it. For mature companies, significant growth is coming from international markets; there is a lot of buzz around pressures of monetization of social media, but..."Look, we’ve been doing this for four years and we know how to do it. We know how to advertise on a social environment.”

On amount of investment planned for India, targets for number of users and revenues: “We’re not commenting on specifics of investment or in terms of forecasting numbers. We’re going to invest to build the right team here” says Kapur.

On hiring plans and team size: Tripathi says that they’ll expand to 20 people soon. Right now the MySpace India team is just 5 people, and “We’re getting in a new person every few days.”

On number of users: MySpace India has around half a million users, but they’re 30 percent month-to-month for the last two months. Kapur adds that “we’ll see Bollywood actors and actresses and Fashion Designers coming and signing up.”

On taking on Orkut, Hi5 and Facebook in India: “We’re not taking them on,” says Tripathi, adding that “Figuring out strategy only in terms of the competition is not always a great idea.” Kapur says that “we’re a different site - we have a culture and an expressive element to the site which we don’t get on other platforms.”

Local languages on MySpace? MySpace Korea is in Korean...: “We’ve thought about it for a bit, but haven’t really come to a final conclusion yet. We want to integrate ourselves more and more into the international community. In Korea and Japan, the Internet language is predominantly the local language,” says Tripathi. More after the jump.

On Mobile and Online Radio: MySpace is in preliminary talks for mobile, and Tripathi says it’s too early to talk about online radio.

Content plans and partnerships: Independent Bands Or Bollywood?: “Any content creator who wants to reach out to people” says Tripathi. “It could be art, photography, writing, film, fashion. We’re also partnering with Saregama, on the Underground initiative - 30 unsigned bands from across the country will be featured in three albums - for Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi, with 10 bands each. You’ll also see interesting things happening with Pakistani content, Retro 80s and 90s music, as well as cult-Tamilian content.”

Events and TV: Kapur says they’ll look at events initially for marketing purposes. Once advertiser relationships are established, events will provide revenues. They’re launching MySpace Live - concerts that will also be broadcast on TV, the first of which (today) will be shown on Zee Cafe, a show called The Gig. “There will be a similar setup for Chennai Bands, Karachi bands. We’ll do the Roots Festival in the North East, where there will be 8 concerts in May,” adds Tripathi. But why aren’t they partnering with the other News Corp (NYSE: NWS) companies - Channel [V]? Kapur says that despite being a News Corp co, MySpace is not beholden to them on an exclusive basis. They’re network-agnostic. However, they have tied up with Channel [V] for a TV show - “Campus Star” with celebrity judges and voting by a MySpace audience.

Monetization?: Kapur says that they’ll monetize with advertising, mobile and e-commerce. Tripathi says that they will share advertising revenue with big content creators, and there will be tie-ups with labels and publishers.