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Google's Chrome OS: Will you give up desktop apps?
Google revealed a bevy of noteworthy developments for its Chrome OS. However, the success or failure of the Chrome OS will ride on whether users will give up desktop applications.... Continued »
Category: MySpace
September 9th, 2009
OpenID, meet the U.S. government
The U.S. government has now joined the OpenID effort.
Ten technology players said Wednesday that they will support President Obama’s initial pilot programs to make it easier to register and work with government Web sites. OpenID is an identity system for the Web that lets people use a single username and password to log in and authenticate themselves to OpenID-compliant Web sites.
The players—Yahoo, PayPal, Google, Equifax, AOL, VeriSign, Acxiom, Citi, Privo and Wave Systems—said they will act as digital identity providers using OpenID and Information Card technologies. In a nutshell, select government sites are now using OpenID.
Obama issued a memorandum to make it easier for citizens to work with government Web sites and pilots are being launched by the Center for Information Technology (CIT), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Based on a statement, you’ll be able to use your Yahoo, PayPal and Google IDs to sign into government sites. According to the government, the use of OpenID will allow individuals to be more interactive with sites without revealing personally identifiable information.
OpenID community board member Chris Messina wrote in a blog post:
By embracing OpenID (and InfoCard), the government is helping to further establish the value of owning one’s own identity, and of having convenient, consistent, and privacy-protecting mechanisms in place to enhance and enable participation.
The government 2.0 promise is to “transform government websites from basic ‘brochureware’ into interactive resources, saving individuals’ time and increasing their direct involvement in governmental decision making.
August 19th, 2009
MySpace makes iLike acquisition official
MySpace on Wednesday announced (techmeme) an agreement to acquire iLike, a leading social music discovery service. The acquisition brings together two companies who share a common vision revolving around social discovery and distribution of quality content.
Reports of the potential acquisition first surfaced on Monday.
In the release, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta said the acquisition complements what MySpace brings to the table:
August 17th, 2009
MySpace to acquire social music service iLike for $20 million
News Corp.-owned social networking site MySpace is expected to close a deal to acquire social music service iLike this week, according to reports.
The deal, as detailed by TechCrunch (techmeme), will be the company’s first acquisition since chief executive Owen Van Natta took reins of the company in April 2009.
The price is “around $20 million,” a source told TechCrunch.
August 4th, 2009
Marines block social networks, concerned about security
A few years ago, the U.S. Department of Defense blocked troops in overseas combat areas from accessing sites like MySpace and YouTube, citing concerns about the increased use of the sites and the potential to overwhelm the military’s private network or compromise combat-sensitive material on the network.
Image Credit: USMC, via Wired
Almost immediately, the government was criticized for preventing homesick troops from being able to stay in touch with friends and loved ones via the sites - and the government subsequently did a bit of back-pedaling on its decision.
Now, the military - specifically the U.S. Marine Corps - is at it again. Effective immediately, the Marines are blocking access to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace for at least one year. According to a Wired report, the order from the Marines read (see full memo):
These internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries. The very nature of SNS [social network sites] creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts OPSEC [operational security], COMSEC [communications security], [and] personnel… at an elevated risk of compromise.
It’s hard to argue that point - especially since scams and spam seem to be on the rise within the social networking worlds. But the Wired piece also goes on to note that even the military itself has a large presence on social networking sites.
- The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has 4,000 Twitter followers.
- The Defense Department’s soon-to-be-unveiled home page will include social media tools.
- The Army recently ordered all U.S. bases to provide access to Facebook.
- Top generals blog from the battlefield.
In fact, Price Floyd, the Pentagon’s newly-appointed social media czar, told Wired that the military can’t “let security concerns trump doing business.” The military, as part of its outreach, needs to be where the people are - and these days, that includes social networking sites.
I can understand why branches of the military might be concerned. But I think there’s also a fine line to walk in allowing the troops access to these sites as means of staying in touch with loved ones, a morale booster.
What are your thoughts? Have the Marines gone too far with a full-scale ban? Or is the government right to be concerned about the possible over-exposure that comes with allowing these sites on the military networks?
July 13th, 2009
Renegotiated MySpace deal to give Google an earnings boost next year
Google reports its second quarter earnings on Thursday, but a few analysts are already looking ahead to the back-half of 2010 and a renegotiated deal with MySpace.
Google inked an obscene $900 million guaranteed ad deal with MySpace in 2006. At the time, MySpace was the social media juggernaut. The problem: Google never quite figured out how to monetize MySpace.
Jeffries analyst Youssef Squali says in a research note that Google will renegotiate the MySpace deal in a way that will boost its earnings. Microsoft might be aggressive in bidding for a MySpace search deal, but that’s a wild card.
Here’s how Squali sees the MySpace negotiation going.
- Google pays out a remaining $150 million to MySpace in the first half of 2010;
- Almost 70 percent of Google’s traffic comes from owned and operated sites so the company can be selective about its partners;
- That selectivity is likely to mean Google can cut its MySpace expenses dramatically from roughly $300 million a year to $100 million;
- News Corp. may toss in some video to YouTube to help the partnership;
- A bidding war is unlikely;
- A revised MySpace deal can drop 13 cents a share to 16 cents a share to Google’s bottom line in fiscal 2010. In fiscal 2011, 25 cents a share to 30 cents a share would fall to the bottom line.
Also see: Analyst: Google will start walking away from bad AdSense deals like MySpace
Squali writes:
Beyond 2Q10 though, we believe that Google would opt to convert the current MySpace deal to one that offers much lower annual guarantees, in the range of $50-100M per year vs. the current run rate of $300M/year. The primary reasons for such renegotiated deal would be the difficulty in monetizing MySpace’s social traffic and the continuing decline in MySpace usage in light of new competitors such as Facebook and Twitter. comScore data from April ’09 suggests MySpace worldwide page views were down by 20% from a year ago level.
July 6th, 2009
Andreessen: Facebook could do $1 billion in revenue if it wanted to
Facebook will likely bring in “billions of dollars in revenue” in five years time and could even do $1 billion in revenue this year if it really pushed itself, board member Marc Andreessen told Reuters. (Techmeme)
Instead, it’s more important for Facebook - and even micro-blogging site Twitter - to continue to grow and capture market share. That strategy mirrors the one that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg put forth when he said last year that he didn’t see the need for a revenue plan until 2011.
I’ve been critical in the past of these sites that continue to grow but offer no insight as to how they make money. Maybe I’m tarnished by the last dot-com boom and the number of sites that launched - and generated a lot of publicity - and then disappeared when the money went away. At some point, there needs to be a plan - a strategy of some sort that says “We’re here for the long run, not just until investment money dries up.”
With that said, the Reuters piece addresses that by pointing to the MySpace example.
MySpace was once a leader in social networking but was quickly swooped up by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which put the focus on selling advertisements instead of feeding the growth momentum. As a result, Facebook swooped in and took market share.
When you look at it that way, it’s hard to argue. Forgive me if I’m a bit leery of popular, high-profile Web properties that have no solid plan for generating revenue over the long-term - but I’ve seen that before.
If Facebook can truly bring in $1 billion this year with some effort - as Andreessen suggested - then maybe I don’t have to worry that Facebook will run out of cash and fold up anytime soon.
July 6th, 2009
Now's the time to manage your online brand
“Managing a Brand through Social Networks” sounds like it should be a training course designed for corporate marketing professionals. Such a course, though, might as well be targeted at an average Joe or Jane, the everyday person who - intentionally or not - is building an online brand of his or her own.
For the average Joe, that brand is him - his name, his reputation and the conclusions that people might draw just from reading his tweets, watching his videos or reading his posts on Facebook. Let’s face it. If this Joe has a beer in his hand in every picture, poses with rifles and dead animals and is a member of the Girls Gone Wild fan club, you might draw a different conclusion about him than you might about Jane, the executive who posts Wall Street Journal news stories, tweets about a networking conference and is a member of a group working to preserve business ethics.
It used to be that young people were warned to be careful about what they posted on their MySpace pages. Pictures of you doing Jello shots at a strip club might be misunderstood by the hiring manager of a Fortune 500 company someday.
None of this is new, of course. We’ve been hearing stories about employers digging into job candidate social network sites for some time now. So why bring it up now? A couple of reasons, largely tied to recent news.
- Social Home Pages: Last week, I posted an entry about GizaPage, which allows users to create a social home page, a single Web page with a single URL where a user can showcase all of his social network profile pages for all the Web to see.
- Social Business Cards: Like GizaPage, up-and-coming social sites DandyID and Retaggr are offering users a clickable business card with all of the user’s social pages that can be embedded on blogs, Facebook profiles or email signatures.
- Facebook’s Vanity URLS: Last month, the company allowed users to choose a custom URL (such as www.facebook.com/myname) so that outsiders can easily find their profile pages, as opposed to searching through the entire Facebook network to see a person’s page.
- Facebook’s new privacy settings: Facebook is about to launch new privacy settings and it looks like the user will have far more control over who sees what on a profile page.
I’ve actually been wanting to chime in about responsible management of our social presences on the Internet for some time. But it was the privacy settings announced by Facebook last week that really drove it home.
Facebook is giving everyone an opportunity to re-examine their privacy settings by allowing them to determine who will see their pictures, posts, notes and so on. Here’s a moment when you’ll be forced to think about what you’re sharing on the Internet.
Do yourself a favor and take this time to re-examine your privacy setting across all of your social networks. Ask yourself how you might come across to people who “know” you online but might not necessarily “know” the real you. If you’re OK with that perception, then keep doing what you’re doing.
But if you suddenly see yourself as the as the drunken, ultra-political loudmouth and don’t like what you see, now’s the chance to change that perception of you.
Suggested reading:
June 16th, 2009
MySpace cuts 30% of workforce; Says it was bloated
MySpace said it would cut its staff by 30 percent in an effort to become ”a more innovative, efficient, and entrepreneurial business.”
When the cuts are over, MySpace will have about 1,000 employees.
MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta said in a statement (Techmeme):
Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company.
The big question is whether a company that bulks up as much as MySpace has can regain its startup mojo.
News Corp.’s digital chief Jonathan Miller said he was confident that Van Natta, who joined MySpace in April, can right the ship. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch said the same on the company’s earnings conference call.
We’ll see. MySpace has lost its cool and its traffic edge to Facebook. Meanwhile, Murdoch and other execs talk of making MySpace more portal-ish to generate ad revenue. That recipe may not work too well.
May 19th, 2009
Cat Got Your Tongue: How Gossip Will Become The New Media
If you believe the profile, there is a cat that twitters. And has 512,733 followers, as of mid-afternoon May 18.
Of course, this cat – alternately known as “Sockamillion” or “Sockington” – and his voice really belongs to Jason Scott, who lives in Waltham, Mass.
Nonetheless, the fact that a cat “speaks” in 140-word chunks and has antic commentary inspires a half-million other animals with brains to follow his every utterance is a strangely profound commentary on modern media.
You have nothing to say? But, if you channel a lower species, maybe you do. And command a following that even large for-profit champion marketers would lust for. Zappos (and its CEO. Tony Hsieh) still beat out Sockington, with 621,315 followers. But Starbucks, for instance, has “just” 183,595 followers on Twitter.
Read the rest of this entry »
May 14th, 2009
Google's MySpace payments: just one more year to go
Assuming MySpace meets its page view requirements, Google writes a $75 million check to News Corp. every quarter as part of a multi-year, $900 million AdSense deal the two hammered a few years ago.
In a post today, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington detailed the payment schedule in the Google-MySpace AdSense deal and echoed what was said by a Wall Street analyst last week: this deal is one that Google will likely not want to renew. The following is paid out in quarterly payments:
- Jan. 1, 2007 - June 30, 2007: $50 million
- July 1, 2007 - June 30, 2008: $250 million
- July 1, 2008 - June 30, 2009: $300 million
- July 1, 2009 - June 30, 2010: $300 million
Last week, Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay wrote in a research note:
Rather than agree to revenue guarantees and exceptionally high TAC rates to partners such as AOL and MySpace, as it did in the past, we think Google will simply pass on these deals and allow a much larger share of this low margin and loss-making business to go to competitors such as Microsoft.
Also see: Analyst: Google will start walking away from bad AdSense deals like MySpace
In his post, Arrington offers his two cents on how MySpace is able to meet its own quotas but why Google also may not be happy with the results. He writes:
Any search on MySpace by default returns Google web results, which is rarely what the user wants to see… For their part, Google is said to be unhappy with the results. Perhaps it’s because MySpace is tricking users into doing Web queries, but click through on ads is rumored to be abysmal, and conversion on those click throughs is even worse. In other words, Google, Google advertisers and users are unhappy, but MySpace is just fine, thank you.
Some of Arrington’s conclusions may be based on conversations with unnamed sources but there’s definitely some meat to this theory. MySpace may bring a lot of eyeballs to the equation, but if those folks aren’t clicking through in a way that benefits Google’s ROI, then cutting those ties after the deal expires makes perfect sense.
You also have to consider the economy factor: things aren’t the same as they were when this deal was first announced back in Summer 2006. The online advertising landscape has changed significantly in that time. If this deal were to be hammered out today, my guess is that the terms would be very different.
Just like every other homeowner and shareholder out there, Google has likely learned a lesson or two about financial deals they’ve signed in the last few years. At least for Google, the end of the deal is already on the horizon.
Previous coverage: Did Google get hosed on its MySpace search deal?
May 8th, 2009
Analyst: Google will start walking away from bad AdSense deals like MySpace
Are the days of silly AdSense deals with the likes of MySpace and AOL over for Google? Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay seems to think so. The analyst upped his price target to $600 for Google shares on the theory that the economy is rebounding and the search giant’s revenue per click ratio will follow. Meanwhile, Google’s profit margins are likely to go higher.
And Google’s ability to walk away from high-cost AdSense deals are one reason those margins are headed higher. Lindsay writes in a research note:
We also expect that Google will be increasingly prepared to walk away from unfavorable AdSense for search and AdSense for content deals in the future and this “mix shift” will also translate into higher margins. Rather than agree to revenue guarantees and exceptionally high TAC rates to partners such as AOL and MySpace, as it did in the past, we think Google will simply pass on these deals and allow a much larger share of this low margin and loss-making business to go to competitors such as Microsoft. This may result in some sensationally negative headlines such as “Microsoft scoops the Xyz deal from Google,” but much of this business is either uneconomic or toxic or both. For example, consider Google’s recent write-down of $726 million attributable to the “strategic investment” tied to the AOL AdSense for Search deal.
Lindsay’s take is quite believable. Google has propped up MySpace financials in recent years with $900 million in guaranteed revenue through 2010 even though it has had trouble monetizing that inventory. The best move for Google may be to let a rival like Microsoft win a deal like MySpace.
There’s a decent bit of evidence that Google is already being more selective. Time Warner indicated that it may buy Google’s AOL stake back as the media giant plans to spin off AOL. And it’s highly unlikely that Google will renew its MySpace deal on the previous terms, much to parent News Corp.’s chagrin.
Other odds and ends from Lindsay’s research note:
An economic rebound in the second half will reverse negative trends in revenue per click rates. That rebound should give Google’s fourth quarter revenue growth of 14 percent.
Paid search has become a proxy for the economy. Lindsay writes:
We believe that paid search is almost unique as an advertising format in that it has no formal contracts and is sold in a real-time electronic auction for search terms. As such, we believe that it will recover almost in real time as the economy improves – so much so that it will in many ways behave like a barometer of economic activity in key sectors such as automobiles and travel. The majority of display advertising does not have these same characteristics because it is sold by sales force and negotiating a new contract typically takes 4-6 weeks per client – generating a significant lag effect. As a result we think the rapid recovery will be almost unique to paid search businesses.
New CFO Patrick Pichette is bringing a new focus on expense control at Google and that discipline will translate into better profits.
May 6th, 2009
Rupert Murdoch: Worst over; MySpace exec changes will regain momentum
News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch says it “is increasingly clear that the worst is over” for the economy (and ad market). Meanwhile, Murdoch said that the executive changes at MySpace will restore the site’s momentum, make the site “more attractive” and deliver more ad friendly inventory.
Murdoch—speaking on a conference call with analysts following the company’s fiscal third quarter earnings report (Techmeme)–gave his economic assessment:
“I’m not an economist, but it is increasingly clear that the worst is over,” said Murdoch, noting he was at the forefront of the pessimism parade. “There are emerging signs that the days of precipitous decline are done.”
He added that the beginning of the quarter looked terrible, but has picked up in recent weeks.
Murdoch also talked up the company’s recent management changes at MySpace. He indicated that the “moves in last two weeks will help it regain momentum” and take it to “a much higher plane of growth.”
Murdoch—along with Jonathan Miller, News Corp.’s digital chief—named Owen Van Natta MySpace CEO last month. Van Natta had been chief revenue officer at Facebook. Van Natta replaced Chris DeWolfe, who agreed to step down.
Van Natta’s job: Juice MySpace’s growth and profitability. Murdoch said MySpace now has the “right people in place to develop new features and products to spur the profitability that has completely escaped our rivals.”
News Corp.’s “other” segment, which includes MySpace parent Fox Interactive Media, reported a third quarter operating loss of $89 million, down $82 million from a year ago.
The company said:
The decline in FIM operating results was driven by lower advertising revenues combined with increased costs associated with the MySpace music joint venture and the launch of new features.
Specifically, FIM ad revenue was down 16 percent in the quarter. Executives noted that there will be more costs coming out of FIM. Murdoch said that Miller will be making MySpace “a much more attractive site” that won’t be chasing Facebook for users that can’t be monetized. Murdoch added:
“We’re not going for the Facebook model of getting hundreds and hundreds of millions of people who don’t bring any advertising with them at all.”
Luckily the rest of the company is a cash cow. News Corp. reported net income of $2.7 billion, flat with a year ago. Revenue, however was $7.37 billion, down from $8.75 billion a year ago.
April 24th, 2009
MySpace names Facebook VP Van Natta as CEO
News Corporation today announced the appointment of Owen Van Natta to the role of MySpace Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately.
Van Natta will be based in Los Angeles and report directly to Jonathan Miller, News Corporation’s CEO of Digital Media and Chief Digital Officer.
Van Natta, 39, previously served as Chief Revenue Officer and Vice President of Operations for Facebook, where he helped negotiate Facebook’s $240 million investment from Microsoft. Earlier, he served as Vice President of Worldwide Business and Corporate Development for Amazon.com, and was most recently the CEO of online music company Playlist, Inc.
News Corp.’s choice of Van Natta is a decidedly mixed one. While Van Natta certainly has the pedigree for the position, he presumably owns a significant part of Facebook, having been one of the earliest executives on board at the company.
Van Natta had previously said in interviews that he desired and was on the search for a CEO position, since Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Moreover, Van Natta joined Playlist just six months ago. He remains an advisor to the company.
April 22nd, 2009
MySpace co-founder agrees to step down as CEO
Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder of MySpace, has agreed to step down from his position and stay on as a “strategic advisor.” News Corp., which owns MySpace, did not name a replacement but the buzz on the All Things Digital blog today has been hinting at Owen Van Natta, former Facebook COO, as a replacement.
The blog is also reporting that company president and co-founder Tom Anderson may also be pushed aside or at least placed into a different position.
Clearly, as momentum in social networking has moved toward sites such as Facebook and, more recently, Twitter, executives at News Corp. are interested in breathing new life into MySpace, once the king of the social networks.
In a statement issued by News Corp., DeWolfe said:
In a little under six years we’ve grown MySpace from a small operation with seven people to a very profitable business with over 1,600 employees… It’s been one of the best experiences of my life and we’re proud of, and grateful to, the team of talented people who helped us along the way. We thank them, as well as the MySpace community for making our vision a reality.
April 15th, 2009
Twitter and news media: A long-term relationship or just a fling?
Twitter experiences another month of exponential growth - 131 percent in March.
YAWN! No big deal, right? When you start from low numbers and see sudden jumps, the growth percentages naturally will be impressive.
But Comscore, in a blog post I discovered by clicking on a Twitter link this morning, decided to spice things up a bit and look closer at the relationship between the news media and Twitter. In recent months, the news media has been buzzing about Twitter and, naturally, that’s prompted some folks who otherwise might be out of the loop to log-in and check it out. But the media-Twitter relationship goes beyond that.
Traditional news outlets - clearly hurting from a shift in readership and ad dollars - are using the microblogging service to pimp out their news stories. (Yes, I’m guilty of doing this, too) Comscore broke down the numbers to see what sort of impact Twitter is having on the traffic to online news sites. (See image)
In the case of CNN, for example, 17.4 percent of the total Internet audience, visited CNN.com during the month. By contrast, 38.1 percent of the Twitter audience visited CNN.com during the month. Obviously, the 17.4 percent number is bigger when you consider that the total Twitter population is still a small fraction of the total Internet audience.
Also see: Twitter: A fine ‘pre-business’ but un-monetizable and a deadly acquisition target
Still, it says something when a news outlet like CNN jumps feet first into Twitter (specifically, the way Rick Sanchez has done) and pulls in nearly 40 percent of an audience that’s extremely loyal to - and a bit obsessive about - Twitter. With more than 62,000 followers, that’s better than the circulation of some small newspapers. 
If Twitter continues its upswing growth over the next few years, there’s an opportunity for news media outlets to jump on the coat-tails and, theoretically, build a following of readers who will return regularly - with or without a Twitter link. Basically, the news media will use Twitter as a distribution tool.
As for returning the favor, it’s hard to say if Twitter will continue to receive the same amount of love from the news media that it’s getting today. Twitter is a great story right now and everyone wants to cover it. But news outlets are fickle and Twitter - much like Facebook and MySpace in the past - is just the flavor of the month. I can’t imagine that the big cover stories about Twitter will last forever.
For what it’s worth, I’d love to see this same Comscore chart a year from now.
April 7th, 2009
5 Things I'd Like To See From My (Or Any) Cable Operator
Just back from the 2009 Cable Show and wishing for a few (seemingly) simple services to appear on my screen — or in my hands.
1. ‘Friend’ alerts. Hey, I can see who’s calling on my telephone while I’m watching “How The Earth Was Made” on History. Why can’t I see what my friends are up to? Give me their tweets, Facebook updates and MySpace comments. Let me know what they’re up to. And they’ll probably recommend a TV show or two along the way that I’ll want to watch, while it’s on. Sure, I’ll want to toggle this on and off. But that shouldn’t be too hard.
2. A “free” netbook — with some video juice. Build me a level of service that I can get my cable TV service (a la Sling) anywhere I go on any device, via wifi. Authenticate who I am (a la BBC iPlayer). And, here’s the good part, build the cost of a netbook that acts as my mobile cable TV, phone and internet box into the subscription.
March 18th, 2009
Could Facebook surpass Google? Not with Twitter around
An analyst report this morning predicts that Facebook - which has been reporting impressive growth numbers - could surpass Google in traffic within the next 2-3 years. That’s a prediction that could use a few asterisks.
The report - issued by analyst Ross Sandler of RBC and reported on Silicon Alley Insider - notes that Google and Facebook are actually more like buddies these days. After all, the number of Google sessions generated via Facebook has nearly doubled - from 9 percent last year to 19 percent. Among Sandler’s key points:
Facebook is actually positive and complementary for Google thus far, but that could change if Facebook’s rapid growth trajectory continues on its current path, or if/when social media can find a business model and attract ad dollars from other online media.
Oh, right. A business model and revenue plan. Facebook needs one. You’ll recall that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last year that he’s focused on growing the number of users and is giving the company a few years - until 2011 - before jumping into a plan for bringing in money.
All economy issues aside, I still maintain that waiting so long may not be the best approach. Social media types are fickle and, in the Internet age, the big thing today may be overshadowed by something new tomorrow. Just look at how quickly Facebook overpowered MySpace in popularity.
Already, Twitter seems to be stealing some thunder from Facebook. Just this week, numbers from Nielsen Online found that Twitter grew by 1,382 percent in February, compared to a year ago, and registered more than 7 million unique visitors in the U.S. for the month, up 50 percent from the 4.5 million uniques a month earlier. (Check out Nielsen’s chart below) Facebook, by comparison was up a still-impressive 228 percent. MySpace was down 4 percent.
Speaking for myself, I am spending much more time on Twitter. And I’m starting to see many more of my Facebook contacts on Twitter too. I know that a handful of people - myself included - are so turned off by the new design that we’re not spending nearly as much time on Facebook as we did before the new look. The new design is frustrating, clunky and, quite frankly, not worth spending the time to figure it out. (Are you listening, Mark?)
With that said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Facebook traffic start slipping in the coming months - or at least for the growth to slow. Doesn’t sound to me like Google should be immediately threatened by Facebook’s growth.
Also see: Facebook’s new look: Will it show us the money?
Loading ...March 16th, 2009
Twitter: A fine 'pre-business' but un-monetizable and a deadly acquisition target
Dear Google, Yahoo and any other potential buyer of Twitter. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay says it’s a bad idea. A really bad idea.
In a research note, Lindsay delivers an interesting history lesson of Internet “pre-businesses.” You know the ones: The companies with large user bases, a lot of attention and no scheme to make a profit. Twitter—the latest Facebook and Google killer—falls into that pre-business category.
Lindsay writes:
February 23rd, 2009
Watch out MySpace, here comes Rupe
Peter Chernin, chief operating officer of News Corp., will step down as of June 30. The big question is what will happen to Fox Interactive Media–mostly known as MySpace–now that Chernin is gone.
The key paragraph in News Corp.’s statement on Chernin’s departure is this one (Techmeme):
The Los Angeles-based Fox businesses will report directly to Mr. Murdoch upon Mr. Chernin’s departure.
Mr. Murdoch is Rupert Murdoch, head honcho as News Corp.
On recent conference calls, Murdoch didn’t talk a lot about MySpace. When he did mention MySpace he focused on how the social network needs to grow a lot and make gobs of cash. Here’s what Murdoch said about MySpace on its most recent conference call:
The same is true at Fox Interactive Media, where we have been investing and expanding into a global social portal, a destination that is as much about entertainment and lifestyle as it is about social networking. We have launched Music, which is off to a great start with partnerships with a number of major and independent labels and high profile artists.
With Video we are making deals with film and television producers for original content that will not need drive increased viewer engagement but also deliver enhanced sponsorship opportunities and revenue. And Mobile is a great success story with new device applications now running on the iPhone and Blackberry and a popular website.
Despite a slight downturn in revenue this quarter, let’s not lose sight that after five years still leads the social networking category in the US and has become a substantial business that we believe will continue to grow.
The operative word here is grow. No pressure there MySpace.
Chernin is launching a Fox based production company so he’s not moving far from the fold. But nonetheless it should be quite interesting to hear Murdoch riff on plans for FIM going forward.
February 5th, 2009
Will News Corp.'s bigger worries cause MySpace to be passed by Facebook?
Media conglomerate News Corp. said today that it’s continuing to feel the pinch of the economy and, like many other industries, is finding its impact to be more severe than once expected. For its second quarter, the company reported an adjusted net loss of $6.4 billion, or $2.45 per share, compared to a net income of $832 million, or 27 cents per share, for the same quarter a year ago. Revenue for the quarter was $7.9 billion, down from $8.6 billion in the year-ago quarter. (Statement)
Broken down by business segments, it’s clear that declining revenues and smaller profits are widespread. But only one segment - the one labeled “Other” - reported a loss of income for the quarter. That segment largely consists of Fox Interactive Media, which largely features MySpace.
Last year, the segment reported a profit of $23 million for the quarter. This year, profits dropped by $61 million, ending the quarter with a $38 million loss. That drop was due, in part, to a decline at Fox Interactive Media, which was due, in part, to “increased costs associated with the growth in unique users, international expansion, the launch of MySpace music.”
Talk about honing in, huh?
Actually, News Corp. didn’t have much to say specifically about MySpace. Instead the company focused in on the larger macro economic picture and the impact of advertising slowdowns on its newspaper and television businesses.
But social networking giant MySpace also should be something to watch as this could be its final year as the No. 1 social networking site in the United States. Facebook, which already has the top seat worldwide, is on a growth swing that could send it sailing past MySpace, which has had relatively flat growth, in 2010. At least that’s the conclusion drawn by TechCrunch after analyzing comScore figures:
Facebook, which became the largest worldwide social network in mid 2008, is still playing catch up to MySpace in the U.S. They have 54.5 million monthly unique visitors, says Comscore, compared to nearly 76 million for MySpace. But Facebook’s growth rate in the U.S. averaged 3.8% per month over the last twelve months. MySpace’s U.S. growth rate is 0.8% per month. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, but unless things change a lot, Facebook will overtake MySpace to become the largest social network in the U.S. in…2010.
(Image credit: TechCrunch)
When News Corp. paid $580 million in cash for the parent company of MySpace back in July 2005, it was considered a bit of a gamble, largely because it was young and its durability was untested. At the time, the New York Times wrote: “In buying MySpace, the company is following Mr. Murdoch’s edict for the far-flung company to follow the increasing numbers of audiences and advertisers online.”
Privately-owned Facebook, which celebrated its fifth birthday yesterday, continues to show steady growth. Meanwhile, MySpace - only a few months older - finds itself with flat-growth and potentially stuck as a sub-category in a business segment labeled “other.”
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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