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."

Comments

"only" $47 million in revenue in 2005

[xiando]

"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..

Re:"only" $47 million in revenue in 2005

[nomadic]

"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..

Could you, however, pay the rent, eat nice dinners, and maintain the hardware, software, technical support, and administrative staff of a service that has 55 million users?