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Viacom vs. News Corp. on Social Networking
dolphinlover writes "The purchase of MySpace.com by Robert Murdoch's News Corporation last year for $580 million has caught the attention of another media conglomerate, Viacom Inc., whose CEO, Tom Freston, has now announced his intentions to purchase or partner with a social networking site this year in order to enhance the company's image with youth. Whether it will also be successful monetarily has yet to be seen, as MySpace.com only had $47 million in revenue in 2005 based on advertising. This news follows Viacom's acquisition of Neopets.com in 2005. For those companies already heavily involved in television and movies, expanding their presence to the Internet provides a new opportunity to gain a foothold over the competition."
Make media that the "youth" like.
News Corp is kicking ass in the 18-25 market right now with shows like American Idol. And they're also nailing those elusive male 18-40 year olds with shows like 24 and the Shield (best show on TV, imho).
Plus, they have the Simpsons.
You mean "Rupert."
Mr. Freston should focus on enhancing his image with parents if he wants to grow his business.
Could this be the sign of yet another bubble forming???
I'm a meetup.com organizer, I just got an (bulk) email today from the CEO suggesting they might be partering/being bought by a major media organization.
Quite a coincidence this is being announced on the same day.
"only" $47 million in revenue in 2005? I'm fairly sure I could pay the rent and eat nice dinners every day with $47 million yearly..
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
They could always start selling personal information off the site to spammers, credit card companies, and advertisers of all sorts... they could even encourage people to take "polls" about what products they prefer, allowing for even more targeted ads. As long as they don't screw up, I can see MySpace.com bringing in lots of advertising revenue.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
I've noticed that Fox and Fx have been promoting MySpace heavily by creating MySpace pages for its television shows.
That's the point. If your company's image is an important part of making money in your other ventures, then the vehicle you use to do that doesn't have to make money. If it does, or even just supports itself, so much the better. It's like getting other companies to pay for your commercials.
And this Internet thing might just amount to something.
sigs, as if you care.
As an ex-News Corp employee, I can tell you that in the case of myspace, revenue is definitely the point. News Corp sees Myspace as a perfect avenue to use for cross-promotion of its TV shows and all other media. It would like to use it to sell videos, music, anything that is owned by umbrella companies and has a price tag. I don't think that sheer and utter commercialization will work though - myspace is not a webstore. It was always my opinion that kids are fickle - push their buttons too hard or try to force something on them and they will just find another online haven. News Corp have been treading lightly because they finally clicked on to this, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the end game is total commercialization of myspace.
Maybe you have stupid kids.
Given this, I wouldn't let them dress themselves for fear they might cause pain or injury.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
who the hell is robert murdock ??
My question is bit off-topic, but important I think.
Is there any relationship between news corp and news.com?
Is there a site that outlines the relationships between the different major media companies (particularly the online ones)?
I'm finding that it is important to know these things in order to interpret the online news.
Since social networking depends on the completeness of its network, people are going to flock to whatever appears to be the leader in the niche. Its like a new auction site competing against eBay - not much room for #2.
Facebook gained market because of its restriction to a well-defined subcommunity. I am not sure why MySpace gained market, other than being easy to set up. Its predecessor Friendster was too sluggish and GeoCities too complicated (and crushed by ads after the Yahoo takeover).
Sadly, I'm on myspace :( I saw a plug for ABC's "Grey's Anatomy - The Complete First Season" or something ridiculous. WTF???
...don't let them take Facebook. Delightfully void of *HORRIBLE* HTML stylings, whiny pre-teens, those godawful "bulletins", and a smooth, clean, reliable interface.
I'll fill this in later
Myspace will probably get worse to become "competitive".
Social networking should be peer to peer. There's no piracy issue; it's all about ME. No problems with the RIAA or MPAA. There's an open source project for somebody.
They should be looking for a <a href="http://www.vobbo.com/">social network with video</a>. The benefits of non-traditional social networks for large companies are significant:
<ul>
<li>Growing social network for repeat visitors and easy advertising
<li>Incorporation of core media focus (video / audio) into that social network
<li>Natural advertisement opportunities at beginning/end of media files rather than interrupting natural flow in text - that is, it's inherently easier to advertise in/around video than in text pages where it's always an interruption.
</ul>
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Maybe Viacom can just start by not suing everyone and trying to take away fair usage rights.
as long as whatever site they buy prevents users from creating the most obnoxious pages on the internet.
"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability."-Oscar Wilde
I'm surprised they haven't renamed MySpace to "henhouse.com."
Ah, I think you folks want the Microsoft Claims Worlds Best Search Engine Soon discussion next door. This is, in fact the social network discussion...
Are they gone? Stupid gits...
:-)
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
New Corp might be kicking ass in that market on TV, but there's new and up and coming sites that allow for different kinds of social networking that allow people to interact in different ways than myspace...deviantarthttp://www.deviantart.com/ is good for artists (lots are in this demo), askothers http://www.askothers.com/ i just found out about but seems to be trying to get people to network based on their knowledge and the knowledge of their friends, sites like blackplanet http://www.blackplanet.com/ allow for social networking based on ethnicity. there's lots of splinters that could add up to a 2x4 for myspace...
I recently discovered Tagworld.com through Business 2.0's 25 websites to look out for. It has its sights on not only MySpace, but Yahoo 360/MSN Spaces as well. It has only been released for 4 months, but has close to 1,000,000 registered users. It's a combination of myspace + flickr + youtube + blogger + delicious, though with its design/layout, it seems to be aiming for MySpace tweens. It's currently offering 1 GB of space to upload/share videos/music. It's heavily Ajax-ed (and promotes that like crazy) and allows people to tag everything and search for tags along those lines. That's probably the only interesting aspect about it through, that a single tag search will yield several multi-media results. The founders Mr. Rifkin and Fred Krueger claim this isn't a build to flip company, but given their track record and if Viacom notices them, I expect them to give in quickly. It received its first round of private funding on Feb. 7th (3 months after launch) and employs 30 engineers.
Murdoch did NOT buy this company to turn a profit. He made a half billion dollar purchase of marketing data. The purchase of myspace was the purchase of millions of filled out questionaires regarding the most fickel target audience ever. He bought the rights to know where these kids are, there likes dislikes, Hell he might even own the rights to your blog. Myspace could never turn a profit and still be a worthwile investment for Satan....I mean Rupert.
If google wanted to, they could make Orkut better than MySpace, in the span of a week. MySpace would get caught "sans culottes" like hotmail did when gmail came out.
I use Orkut, and it is slow, feature-poor, and prone to errors. I don't know who at Google is responsible for it, but I've complained a number of times about it and nothing ever gets done about anything. (I'm a sysadmin, so yes I've already tried different connections, browsers, hardware, etc. all the same) My reason for trying it is the MySpace/YouTube debacle, but if none of my friends like Orkut, what am I to do...
And by the way, if the $47M is gross revenue, it is likely that the MySpace is losing money overall. That would be nice. They are such ad-whores.
Viacom which owns networks like MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and online properties like ifilms and neopets - their prime target is already teens and youth. If they marry it social networking they will be able to tap the full potential or their online properties and TV networks.
They can use the integrated networks for variety of reasons - other than feeding audiences to each other. Like contests, talent hunt, amateur media, selling music, etc.
I am seeing a trend where new media won't be competing with the traditional media, infact traditional media owners will converge to new media and would become the owner there also. No matter, citizens are turning into producers, but the power still lies in the hands of the DISTRIBUTORS
Santosh @ Newsmotto
There's this cool new site that I found. http://www.comparehangouts.com/ It compares My Space and Friendster etc.