Google Signs $900m MySpace Deal

deadmantyping writes "Google has signed a $900m deal with Fox to provide search capabilities for Fox sites, the most noteworthy of which is MySpace. This deal does not include FoxSports.com, which already has a deal with MSN. Google claims that 'MySpace was an important site to be involved with given its rapid popularity growth.' Google also signed a deal with MTV earlier in the week."

Comments

I just hate it when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rupert Murdoch ($500M for myspace.com) gets to tug on his suspenders and say, "Guess I'm not so dumb after all."

Re:I just hate it when...

[Phreakiture]

Rupert Murdoch ($500M for myspace.com) gets to tug on his suspenders and say, "Guess I'm not so dumb after all."

Heh. Nobody should ever accuse him (or his buddy W, for that matter) of being dumb. It gives too much benefit of the doubt.

Getting serious for a second, though, it's good to see that MySpace is finally doing something about their search capability. You can put just about anything into their current search engine, and go through the results it returns with a fine-toothed comb and not find a single instance of any search term in the results. I think it just calls a random-number generator.

Re:I just hate it when...

[70Bang]

Although he saw the long-term potential in it and he should be commended for the timing in jumping on it before someone beat him to it,
seeing him on the cover of Wired (July '6) makes it appear as though it was his idea, his funding, his efforts, etc.

Sure, MySpace could|would a crash & burn if someone didn't jump in at an appropriate moment, and it's unkonwn how closely he beat out someone else to grab the real estate, but it'll remain to be seen how he adds this little jewel to his crown. i.e., what types of commitments will they have to make to keep the boss happy. You can claim the money can make you overlook a lot, but there's a reason why a lot of people will take the money & run: freedom.

On the other hand, the Business Week article cited several days ago, points out that VC isn't able to force the recipients to capitulate quite as much as they used to (management positions, board seats, etc.) This change, IMO, is a good thing. There are a few companies who aren't going to go quietly into the night. witness: Microsoft. (here's a number. take it or we'll do it ourselves in a year and squash you)

crazy, google, myspace

[(fagging beta)]

You know something is truly messed up when MySpace is valued anywhere near a billion dollars.

Re:crazy, google, myspace

[dexomn]

I think it's pretty interesting actually. According to sone randomly edited, freely available, possibly erroneous information:

"[AOL] had at one time a customer base that reached over 30 million subscribers" - from aol wikipedia page

"MySpace currently reports just over 99 million members, with 500,000 new members each week." - from myspace wikipedia page

Two different services that can be used relatively easily to meet people, or chat, or for show and tell or whatever. If you've ever logged into aol since... well, probably since qlink; you would be greeted with some wonderful advertisement in which you could purchase an item by clicking on it. It's a modal window so you have to actually click 'No thanks.' to get rid of it. The rate of users being accosted by advertisments would logically increase as advertising to generate revenue increases.

When you go to myspace(the www in general anymore), you get soemthing similar; crazy interactive flash advertisements promising a free ipod or a fantastic mortgage rate. Some of them let you beat famous people with sausages and some make loud annoying sounds unexpectedly on a mouseover. Those are embedded in the page.

So people get used to these things and know where not to click, but the advertisement is still there. The president is still jumping around in boxing gloves just itching to get you that ipod. Or maybe some mice are running around on a tabletop that would like to prevent you from flicking the bean into the dixie cup.

Even if you aren't sucked into the adds you see them.
People love MySpace and AOL. And many that hate them still use them anyway.
You can't pry AOL or MySpace from their cold dead hands. (AOL not so much these days it seems)

With this kind of exposure there is huge advertising/sales potential and huge data mining potential.

Re:crazy, google, myspace

[Duncan3]

"MySpace currently reports just over 99 million members, with 500,000 new members each week." - from myspace wikipedia page

That just means 5% make a new profile each week, and they stop counting when a profile is erased for 5 weeks.

Kids do that, try out new identities all the time, change names, interests, etc. It's 100% normal teen behaivior.

It's great for inflating your numbers if you're a website that hosts them tho :)

Re:crazy, google, myspace

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you aren't sucked into the adds you see them.
People love MySpace and AOL. And many that hate them still use them anyway.
You can't pry AOL or MySpace from their cold dead hands. (AOL not so much these days it seems)

i think anyone with half a brain figured out to move to a 3rd party client for AIM (if that's what you mean by AOL. who uses AOL anyway??) thus eliminating its annoying ads. as for embedded flash ads in pages, what about using [gasps] adblock [/gasps]?

Re:crazy, google, myspace

[Pulse_Instance]

(if that's what you mean by AOL. who uses AOL anyway??)

At least the 657,427 people mentioned here, AOL Releases Search Logs of 657,427 Users still use AOL.

Re:crazy, google, myspace

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't pry AOL or MySpace from their cold dead hands. (AOL not so much these days it seems)

Actually, AOL's the one you can't get away from by dying. From TFA:

The problem? An AOL account once held by Gauthier's late father still showed billing charges accumulating against it. The account had been dormant for months; the credit card he used for it was inactive at least as long.

Nevertheless, AOL kept charging $25.90 each month for dial-up online access. Late fees for non-payment accumulated on the credit card, too.

Gauthier even offered to send a copy of her father's obituary as proof he truly was dead. AOL was unmoved.

"An AOL service guy told me to stop complaining and learn to use a computer," she said. "Then he hung up."

Re:crazy, google, myspace

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, maybe you should read the post before making your comment....

It says the the 'deal' is to provide search capabilities for Fox sites. Just in-case that was too difficult to figure out:
Google will provide to Fox search capabilities for use on THEIR (FOX'S) sites (SUCH AS MYSPACE) for site visitors to use. Google is NOT buying Myspace.

Jeez!

Myspace taking over......

[matts-reign]

I don't see the attraction of myspace.

It seems like everybody is using the website now. I can understand that people want to host their own content.

Why then, are movies using myspace? Talladega nights advertises its offical url as http://myspace.com/rickybobby. Why? Why not just have a regular website? Or is there something i'm missing?

Re:Myspace taking over......

[bcat24]

Is that URL from the trailer? Googling "talladega nights" gets me to this Sony Pictures page, with no MySpace hits in the first few pages of results.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, for a movie...

Letting someone else pay for the hosting costs would be a pretty big perk. And my guess would be myspace users probably represent a group which is pretty lucrative to market to (stupid, follow-the-group types but with time and money to spare).

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm well you shouldn't have to think that hard on this one. Most myspace members go directly to the site when they get onto the computer. If they can find content on the site w/o going to a different website then they'll go there for convenience. Everyone is also already familiar with myspace, it's sort of a "this generation" thing so whoever uses it must be cool.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[YrWrstNtmr]

I don't see the attraction of myspace.

You're evidently not 14.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[0100010001010011]

Don't tell her that.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Murdoink]

Why? Why not just have a regular website? They probably don't know how to make one.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

Even things with official websites are often just pointers to a myspace page these days. This is especially common with bands.

"Offical website of . Click here now to hear them on MySpace.com"

The vanity sites irritate me more though, since you have a site, have a host, have nothign to say, but create a myspace page to do everythign you always could anyway. Ugh!

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Ruff_ilb]

Regardless, many films are doing this... it's really a moot point as to whether or not this particular film does it.

The bottom line is that a myspace link is familiar to lots of people, easy to access, easy to create, and plays into the social networking scheme that myspace yields. If someone can add "Ricky Bobby" to their myspace friends account, or whatever (I don't use myspace, so I don't know exactly how it works), but for a very small amount of effort, and likely no funding (they can rehash their own promotional materials) they can reach a number of people, and then (and this is where MySpace has another significant advantage) reach the people those people have friended on myspace, because the friends will see the user's like for the movie. Thus, for almost nothing, the marketers can reach people that wouldn't normally access the site.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[hunterkll]

Who ? the internet or my sister?

Re:Myspace taking over......

[LDoggg_]

Letting someone else pay for the hosting costs would be a pretty big perk.

Barely.
Compared to the money they spend on television advertising, web hosting is nothing.

Using a myspace.com/movie site is really stupid for another reason:
Myspace.com tends to get filtered on networks where a movie site wouldn't be cosidered inappropriate.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[assassinator42]

Normal movie sites probably have better uptime than MySpace as well.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[binarybum]

spot on.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[kemo_by_the_kilo]

to post a dupe (like thats not been done before)
a copy and paste from one of my old posts
#rant
okay okay......
for the longest time nerds were outcasted when the net first started.
myspace is a way for the rest of the non-tech-savvy people to catch up.
when geocities.com first started in the mid-90's, every tech/geek/nerd/etc had a webpage that looked not as high quality but just and loud and annoying as the my space profiles these "teens" create.
the world has caught up, and now they are making webpages .... with limited knowledge. todays myspace.com pages is like yesterdays geocities pages.....
myspace = animated hell
geocites = over use of the blink tag and who the fark though it would be cool to have lime green text over a bgimage that looks like a bad shirt from the 70's.
basically i am saying.. the rest of the world is adopting the internet. they arent as tech savvy so they use myspace because its easy... half of them just copy and paste code, dont tell me you havent done that ever. dont get me wrong i am not trying to say it is right to have a bad webpage/profile/blog/whatever, but i am saying it is a trend like neon hot pants in the 80's. its big bold and ugly, but give it time and people will realize that jerry curl(read: myspace profile) isnt cool anymore.

also if you give them BS now some might stray forever away from the net.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[apflwr3]

Why then, are movies using myspace? Talladega nights advertises its offical url as http://myspace.com/rickybobby [myspace.com]. Why? Why not just have a regular website? Or is there something i'm missing?

For one thing it's potentially a marketing goldmine.

"Rickybobby" has 60,000 "friends." It could be 600,000 in a couple of months. Almost all of these "friends" are in the coveted teens-and-twenties demographic. The fact that they are willing to be friends with a movie means they're susceptible to advertising. They will be getting messages and emails and "friend invites" from upcoming movies and who-knows-what-else from Sony Pictures for a long time to come.

Why do you think Myspace is worth so much to Fox? It's a database of millions of teenagers who proudly list their interests and hobbies.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll understand the first time you get laid on myspace. It's sweet.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[jcmb]

Not 14? You must not have any friends that use myspace, or in other words: no friends at all. Most people who avoid myspace are either old farts who criticize anyone under 30, or slashdotters living in their parents basement. The influence Myspace has over the younger generation is undeniable, and by younger I also mean people older than 14.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[shawb]

And probably more importantly than just reaching people, the marketers can find what interests the people they reach have. Looking into it a bit can show that some unexpected demographic might be into the movie/band/whatever. Or they might find larger interest in certain geographic regions than expected... in theory this could allow companies to bring products (including movies and art) to people that actually want them. This is probably more important for something like a band planning out a tour schedule, but larger companies can use it to concentrate their marketing as well.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[mshurpik]

Ew. EWW!!

Yes, I know there are hot girls on Myspace. I still have standards though.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[jb.hl.com]

Most people who avoid myspace are either old farts who criticize anyone under 30, or slashdotters living in their parents basement.

Stolen for sig. :)

Re:Myspace taking over......

[mshurpik]

Like 15, 16? Those are the ages of the people who use Myspace when they come over my house.

I had a friend in his early 20's who met a girl on Myspace, and that turned out to be a disaster. I stopped talking to both of them. And from the fact that they met on the computer, I saw it coming from the very beginning.

These people are all officially the loser nerds I was when I was a kid, except back then, I was the only one.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit. I am 17, do not use MySpace, and in my clique (30-50 people, depending on time of year) only about half use MySpace.

Not as large of a percentage use MySpace as you'd think.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[SilentChris]

Actually, most people who avoid Myspace can't stand piss-poor webdesign, pages that take forever to load and endless tirades by teenagers. Never mind the fact that most kids "grow out of Myspace", apparently, when they head off to college (Read this in a CNN article recently. Google it).

I still don't see the attraction of hosting on Myspace. It costs, what, 5 bucks to rent a box nowadays? And you have total control of your content, not what News Coporation deems is appropriate.

All Myspace is a virtual gym class from high school. A place to socialize and learn people skills (albiet online) before heading off to a work environment. In that regard, it's a success -- but by those standards any social networking site that gets large enough is a success. In every other instance (design, marketing, etc.) it's a failure.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[bananaguyc]

The value of marketing on MySpace is phenomenally huger and more measurable than a normal "website", just due to the fact that MySpace has the whole photo-oriented "friends" concept. Under this concept marketers get a MUCH better idea of who's interested in your movie or product or whatever due to the fact that the whole thing is "Opt-In". This is WAY different from just advertising a URL, putting banner-type-ads on other sites and/or doing e-mail/spam campaigns. These more traditional forms of Internet marketing run the risk of the fact that frequent Internet users quickly become desensitized. Not to mention the fact that "clicks" has always been a questionable meaure of success. Another advantage of MySpace is the whole "envy" factor. Where you are essentially letting your target market do some marketing for you. The MySpace mentality is like, "Johnny has added 'Big Summer Movie' to his friend's list, they must be cool, so I will go ahead and add them to my own list". Also, this feels more innocuous and harmless to a company's target audience than annoying banner ads just placed on a related (or not) website. And for those of you that believe this (old)media-hype about the MySpace-thing being just for "teeny-boppers" - think again. I am over-25 and I have caught up with a TON of people on there from high school, university and work. The whole thing among older MySpace users is about getting-in-touch and keeping-in-touch with people in an environment that gives you a really good amount of freedom, and where the whole culture promotes the use of photos (photo-sharing is always a huge draw for females, and of course the guys go where the ladies are). There's this whole "reunion" type buzz among us "older" (read: non-teeny-bopper) users. Many 20-30-something people post their wedding/family photos & whatever on there. ***(Classmates.com was onto something years prior to the current social-networking trend, but unfortunately for them, they killed off their demand by deciding to charge). Also, unlike e-mail, you are relatively well-protected from Spam on MySpace -- I believe this is A HUGE factor for all the post-college-age people who use MySpace. You don't have to deal with a lot of unwanted crap being obtrusively *pushed* at you. I know among my 20-30 something peer group MySpace has become a very practical way to get a hold of people, since it's a lot more convenient than keeping up with all kinds of e-mail addresses, varying cell phone numbers and varying IM contacts none of which promotes the usage of photos. MySpace also has features that let you know for sure if your personal message was actually read by someone who is on your friend's list - something that e-mail & cell/voicemail do not provide. Also, multi-media-text messaging is hugely popular overseas, but not in the U.S. because of the expense(read: greedy cell-phone carriers). Myspace helps fill that demand for multimedia messaging that exists. Also, the fact that computer hardware prices have plummeted recently, along with the fact that current technology has made the use of digital photography and computer/internet-use in general more idiot-proof has played a HUGE factor as well. All of these features, factors and good timing all played a role in making MySpace hugely popular.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha, I thought you were going to say

I call bullshit. I am 17, do not use MySpace, and in my clique (30-50 people, depending on time of year) NO ONE uses MySpace.

But you didn't say "among my 50-size sample NO ONE" you said about half! So in fact your datapoint proves its RAGING popularity. Imagine if you had said "Marijuana use is NOT rampant among teenagers. I'm 17, and in my clique (30-50 people) only about half use marijuana regularly." Not as large a percentage as you'd think.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

How About Microsoft, Yahoo, .... signing a deal with google????????//

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

Piss poor web design? Wow, way to either not look at the site or be too overly critical of simple things. Anyway, its obviously apparent that you're an idiot, judging by the fact that you think that everybody knows computers and therefore cares that they have total control over their hosting box. By the way, i have never seen News Corp remove content from anybodys myspace page, so i dont know where you get your information from but it seems like its slightly skewed.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Rob Kaper]

Why do you think Myspace is worth so much to Fox? It's a database of millions of teenagers who proudly list their interests and hobbies.

Yup, like TV, people are the content and advertisers the customer. It's just a bit more clear on the web where people actually are the content.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[ashot]

I think you are missing the point. When you put it inside myspace, it subconsously feels like it is still *in* that familiar space. The concepts and the layout are easy to digest, and you don't feel like you ever left your own backyard, so, you're (you being a myspace user) more likely to be willing to go, and you're more likely to stay.

Or maybe its just Rupert flexing his muscle.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

Myspace is to the web as shopping malls are to publicly owned shopping streets:

• Myspace is a private space. The web is a public space. You need to pay News to talk to its users, just as you need to pay a shopping mall to advertise in their space.
• Myspace is ripe for censorship. The web is difficult to censor. Try handing out political leaflets, or saying anything that makes shoppers feel 'uncomfortable', in a shopping centre. Similarly News has such control over myspace.
• Myspace is a 'safe' place. Just as shopping malls have security to keep undesirable people out, so does myspace.
• Apathetic people don't care that they spend their lives cocooned in the artificial, controlled, censored environment of a shopping centre. Likewise apathetic Internet users don't care if they give up their freedom to be cocooned in myspace.

In summary, myspace is simply the arrival of "Internet for the apathetic". What AOL always wanted to be.

Did Netizens really expect "the apathetic" to subscribe to the Internet traditions of freedom and cooperation when they joined the Internet? No, the "Internet" will bend to accomodate the apathetic, not the other way around.

The trick is for the real Internet (those of us who believe in freedom and cooperation) to "route around the damage" and be self sufficient, not relying on the "apathetic Internet". We need our own software, communications channels, and so on with which to preserve Internet ideals.

The real Internet (ie. the non-apathetic people) is under threat because those powerful people who spoon feed the apathetic are gaining control of core systems such as the IP address apace, backbone links and to a lesser extent the DNS system. We need alternatives for these.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

Myspace is just shit. Get over it fanboy.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Nicaboker]

Actually, I'm in college and everytime I meet someone new at a bar instead of asking for phone numbers people ask "Do you have a myspace account?" So it's not just a high school thing or younger it's infecting everybody it seems. I saw the benefit of it at first. A way to get back in touch with "long lost" friends, but at this point it's become such an over used and overly "customized" that it's just unreal. Hell it reminds me of livejournal and all things of that nature.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

"Actually, I'm in college"

Not majoring in English, I take it.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Rew190]

I don't see the attraction of myspace.

It seems like everybody is using the website now.

You just cracked the code without even knowing! Honestly, I must say that I'm a little surprised that /. in general seems to harbor so much animosity towards MySpace. If you want user content, then it should come as no surprise that lots of it is going to suck. Personally, I use it to keep in touch with friends, find old friends from school, and basically as an email system for my friends who use it (and that's just about all of them - I'm 25). For these purposes, the site just works. If you generally use it as intended (not adding friends unless they are actually your friends) and your friends do the same, it can be very useful for meeting friends of friends or continuing a conversation that you started with someone at a party or whatnot.

Are there better tools that could do all of this? Yes. Do these tools already have the vast majority of users that MySpace already has? No. Yes, the design sucks, but most of these people CSS the crap out of it until it's more theirs than MySpace's. The design and ghetto-flash isn't the point, though. The point is that it's a simple social website with all of the basic tools that everyone is using. That's why it's popular, and as long as it hangs on to its user base, that's all it will need until something much better comes along and shifts everyone over.

It's a tool that, if used correctly, is useful. It seems like /. just discovered MySpace two months ago and now looks for any excuse to post a story about it to insinuate a hate-fest.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[laffer1]

I'm 27 and just signed up in may. I only use it to find out what happened to high school friends and assholes. Its funny how many people in my class now work at a gas station or an adult bookstore. A few of the cheerleaders made it as waitresses. Its worth the bad web design to laugh at people who said you'd never be anything.

Best of all its free unlike classmates.com which won't tell you shit unless you pay them.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[SCDavis]

your missing something...

www.rickybobby.com

Re:Myspace taking over......

[hotspotbloc]

I don't see the attraction of myspace.

IMO it's just the "flavor of the week" like tripod, geocities, angelfire, yada yada yada were at one time. Soon enough the SNR on myspace will be nothing but lifted clip art and blinking text. Oh wait ...

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Caiwyn]

Good insight. In other words, it's the ultimate in viral marketing. I work for a marketing agency (though I'm not in marketing myself) and "viral" is what everybody wets themselves over in this business. If you can get word-of-mouth to spread, it's basically free advertising. If your ad is good enough that people want to see it, interact with it, and be a part of it, then you spend less time and money taking your message to consumers -- they come to you. MySpace was practically made for this; it's an easy way for people to find you on their own, and an easy way for them to spread the word about you.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

i dont know if i would call a website with 72 million users a marketing failure.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Soygen]

MySpace is a piece of crap site. However, I have hooked up with old friends that I haven't seen in years because of the site and it allows me to keep in contact with current friends and family all in one place. I can do without all the busted webcode, but other than that, I think it's a pretty fun diversion.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[johansalk]

It's almost becoming like if you're not on myspace then you don't exist or there's something seriously wrong with you. I meet people in real life, in pubs and elsewhere, and I get asked about my myspace! Not my email or phone number, no, my myspace! Damn, and I avoided myspace like the plague all these years. Sounds like I need to quickly assemble a vain, pretentious-looking "profile" of me with "cool" pictures (I can't stomach the idea!) and some 600 cool "friends".

Re:Myspace taking over......

[mdwh2]

Myspace is to the web as shopping malls are to publicly owned shopping streets:

By that logic, Slashdot is private also. But presumably there's a reason you chose to post your comment in this private shopping mall, rather than hosting your own webserver and posting it there?

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

I am 25, and use it all the time, and my usage is steadily increasing. Most of my friends use it too. Here is why:

People are social animals. We are wired to talk to each other, we enjoy it. One thing that myspace gives is the feeling of informality that makes it ok to just say hi to someone you haven't talked to in years, "just because they are on myspace." I moved high schools in my junior year, and due to a lack of a car, I lost touch with eventually just about all of my old friends. Then one day, out of nowhere I got a friend request from one of my old buddies. It was a good feeling to reconnect, and thats one of the larger draws. Through him I found a bunch of other people that I used to hang out with also.

The "network effect" of myspace is also what draws people in. Its kind of boring when you have 10 friends and nothing is really going on. But slowly and steadily you build your friendbase and those messages that only get sent every once in awhile start to occur on a daily or more than daily basis.

This is analogous to real life. If you only have one friend, chances are the phone is not going to ring all that much. However, if you have 10 good friends, chances are a good deal better someone is going to call you up to make plans for the weekend. You make friends with the friends of your friends, suddenly you may have 40-50 people in your "extended network" that may just call to say hello or invite you out.

There is also the anonymous "stalking" factor that seems to be a somewhat unique pastime to people in my age group. We are just nosy and want to see what others are up to. There are people I knew in college who I am not really all that interested in hanging out with or calling up, but I am curious to know what they are up to (and maybe see how successful I am compared to them, I am a competitive mofo). I often don't even list these people as friends, but I just go to their page, see where they are living, what they are doing, who they are dating, etc.

Myspace reminds me of AIM back when it first came out. People loved the informalness of it all. Eventually AIM kind of matured to the point where it became a more serious medium of communication, and now its considered kind of odd to just IM someone out of the blue. Myspace does not yet have that stigma, its still pretty much a hey wanna be my friend? great! kind of place.

Yes, there are many aspects that suck. I can't believe the garbage pages that many of my friends put up. It is slow and buggy as hell, and frequently doesn't even work. There are "friend whores" all over the place that just see their number of friends as some kind of score (remind you of the days on slashdot before the karma caps at all?) If I had my way, I would strictly enforce the types of pages people could put up, put options on to shut off all sounds and videos if you didnt want to be subjected to them, and make the ads far less obtrusive. The site would really be many times better if they provided some clean, professional looking templates to use. I would also halt all new feature development until the site is up and running without the massive amount of glitches it encounters today. I would also clean up the site's design, there is just so much coming at you on the main login pages and such that you cant concentrate on anything, it quite literally makes my head hurt.

Anyway, thats my diatribe on why I use myspace. Saying you don't like myspace because of the idiot teens is like saying you won't go to the mall because of those damn kids! Yes, it has its problems, but you take the bad with the good.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[A. Bosch]

It's a database of millions of teenagers who proudly list their interests and hobbies.

Exactly. As far as being a design, etc., failure -- perhaps true, certainly irrelavant. It seems consistent with Google's methodology: "Here's something for free (Picassa, Gmail, etc.); do you mind if we look over your shoulder for some marketing info?"

Re:Myspace taking over......

[flight_master]

I don't see the attraction of myspace. It seems like everybody is using the website now. I can understand that people want to host their own content. Why then, are movies using myspace? Talladega nights advertises its offical url as http://myspace.com/rickybobby. Why? Why not just have a regular website? Or is there something i'm missing?

You're obviously not in the teen-age "In-Croud". MySpace is cool, because "everyone else has it..." This is also why movies are using it, at least those targeting a younger audience. IMHO, I'll stick with a personal domain, and a blog, thank you very much. -Chris

Re:Myspace taking over......

[morcego]

I've have met this kind of situation once, but about linkedin, not myspace.

In any case, my answer to anyone asking why I don't have a myspace page is simply "I have better things to do with my time".

If anyone goes looking for me on myspace, they really should get shot. It is simply too easy to look for me (real name, of course) on google. Or to use my personal e-mail address, which never changed since 1998.

Really, why should I care about myspace ? I REALLy have better things to do with my time.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[cdrudge]

You forgot massively annoying background music in addition to the blinking text and stolen clipart.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[ameoba]

Remember how, a few years back, advertisers were giving out URLs and AOL keywords?

Pretty much the same thing - if you find a large clustering of LCD users, you have to translate from the real internet into their world.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[WilliamSChips]

I had a myspace account about a year ago but I deleted it because I realized it was all chain-letters.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[kitode]

The bottom line is that MySpace has surpassed everyone in hits. Hilarious, actually - has google been hoist by its own petard? Are conversations in MySpace coming up high in a google search BECAUSE MySpace is ginormous?

Google has to do a deal because its very algorithms are designed to create beauty queens that are worshipped by all while leaving the lovely and brilliant also-rans completely impossible to find.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have tried it and no one wanted to be your friend. Well. OK. One friend. Default Tom :)

Re:Myspace taking over......

[jb.hl.com]

I'll go one further; I found a partner through MySpace. Probably more than any of these people criticising it have ever done.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[70Bang]

Here's another age fact|factor for you, derived from separate; i.e. independent, sources across a number of years.

1. It's been known for a long time that the tobacco industry knows if they don't get you by the time you're nineteen, you're likely to never be a smoker, although I don't know if that applies for social smoking (my term for those who smoke when they are social drinkers; i.e., the ony time they smoke is when they're out for a few drinks with their friends.

2. Several years ago, and before the hyper-caffeinic drinks, pills, gum, mints, and anything else you can think of, tea and coffee were considered the primary sources (chocolate has it as well and I have Mormon friends who come down both sides of the fence as to whether they will eat it or not). Coffee is an acquired taste and the coffee industry has known for a long time if they don't get you by the age of nineteen... (I'm a fussy eater & drinker. I tend to not eat or drink things which are acquired tastes. Too many times when I was forced to eat things, even if I didn't like them. This included things like gristle on pork chops. Once I left home...that was it. It drives my MIL crazy. I'll eat a hotdog with sour cream, brown mustard, cheese, tomato, and celery salt but won't eat "ham" (as in "sliced ham") because of the fond "gristle memories" from ham & pork chops.)

3. Within the previous ten years or so, research (unable to cite, too much reading from too many [hardcopy] newspapers and magazines) revealed if you aren't nineteen..., rap will likely sound as offensive as the mosquito tone we were having fun with several days ago.

Rather interesting, don't you think? (The nineteen year breakoff, not my eating habits)

p.s.

The "hot" item at the Indiana State Fair (#150) tomorrow? Deep Fried Sauerkraut and Deep Fried Chocolate Strawberries.

Re:Myspace taking over......

[WilliamSChips]

A guy who made a song from Ted Stevens' speech was sued for copyright infringement, even though Congressional speeches are ipso facto public domain, and said song would be fair use as parody. Note that News Corp, who owns Myspace, is also the largest campaign donor to Ted Stevens' campaign.

Googlejuice

[Anonymous Coward]

I think my pitcher of Googlejuice just ran out.

Excellent!

[ScentCone]

Vapid, self-obsessed, score-keeping emo-inanities will now be even easier to find! And that's just the garage bands.

Wait... did you feel that? A great disturbance in the workforce, like millions of voices crying out... like it just became easier than ever for HR departments around the world to sift through that stack of resumes.

Re:Excellent!

[ackthpt]

Vapid, self-obsessed, score-keeping emo-inanities will now be even easier to find! And that's just the garage bands.

C'mon. This is why eBay is so successful. Not because they have the best approach or the best business model, hell from what I've seen they're a mindless bunch of jerks who change their site arbitrarily in not necessarily good ways. Even the best practices seem to evade them for years.

It's simply where the herd is. And when the herd is all in one spot, very few feel compelled, until significant pain or market forces dictate they must move elsewhere, even that will likely be a mass migration to the next place. That you and I don't see it as exciting should tell both of us that we are outside the bell-curve. (Either that or these people have it fatally wrong and won't know it until a year or so from now when it all goes tits up, just like a lot of the really dumb ideas of the dot-com bubble.)

Re:Excellent!

[andrewman327]

it just became easier than ever for HR departments around the world to sift through that stack of resumes.

Agreed. Just look at this cover my HR department got the other day! (Hey, they're using it for movies, and I think that most of its individual users are dumb enough to do this.)

drear employr,
if u want 2 see my resume', chec out my MySpace. ignore the pix of me (hehe, i was so drunk) and the awesome muzic (i wuz 9 when Maroon 5 relesed that song) and clic on the "CLICK ME" link.

Re:Excellent!

[Bronster]

See also: slashdot (but I didn't need to point out the obvious now, did I)

Re:Excellent!

[transiit]

Perhaps I'm missing your inherent irony, but depending on who you talk to slashdot jumped the shark a half decade ago.

As I see it, there are a few camps left. Feel free to suggest others if I've missed them:

The new: Hey, they're new. Can't blame them for that that.
The old: Well, some people believe that there was a golden age of slashdot, and can't quite bring themselves to believe it's over, so they keep coming back, just in case.
The curmudgeons: Ok, so others might believe that slashdot never had any redeeming value, but show up just to reenforce that viewpoint.
The trolls: The static. Find me anywhere that doesn't suffer the noise from the signal over a signficant timeline. Try not to be elitist about it.
The undecided: I heard it was good, once, maybe, so I'm still checking it out.
The true believer: Golden age of slashdot over? Never!
The meta-philosphers: Hey, let's just attach whichever of the previous assertions make sense for today's comment. It's all relative anyway.

I won't identify myself with any specific camp, but let's just say that it's hardly optimistic.

Re:Excellent!

[Bronster]

Slashdot falls into the "good enough not to be totally worthless, and nothing else is so significantly better that it's worth switching" bracket. Plus, everyone else[tm] is here.

I think it's largely the "there's enough going on to keep me distracted for an entire workday" factor that makes slashdot so... um... slashdotty.

Yeah, something like that.

Re:Excellent!

[grolschie]

Wait... did you feel that? A great disturbance in the workforce, like millions of voices crying out... like it just became easier than ever for HR departments around the world to sift through that stack of resumes.

Or perhaps the millions of voices crying out are that of people with burning eyeballs from viewing some of the cluttered layouts, clashing loud colours and the multitude animated gifs that appear on 99% of all myspace pages. ;-)

Re:Excellent!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:

sign my gestbook, kk wb!!1

Re:Excellent!

[noidentity]

"if u want 2 see my resume', chec out my MySpace. ignore the pix of me (hehe, i was so drunk) and the awesome muzic (i wuz 9 when Maroon 5 relesed that song) and clic on the "CLICK ME" link."

Dear lusr1432,

Which of the hundreds of "click me" links am I supposed to click?

Re:Excellent!

[andrewman327]

lolz, not da "click me" linkies, the "CLICK ME" link
rua luzor lolz?

(Mods: read this in context!)

Re:Excellent!

[OakDragon]

Perhaps I'm missing your inherent irony, but depending on who you talk to slashdot jumped the shark a half decade ago.

...

I won't identify myself with any specific camp, but let's just say that it's hardly optimistic

Hey, you forgot one!

The overly-sensitive: What?! Mod me as Troll?! That's it, I'm outta here! ...3 days later... Okay, I'm back :\

(Okay, it was me)

Re:Excellent!

[andrewman327]

no dont!!! eye dohn't want my 500 MySpace buddies 2c that such a compny 4 luzors wuz checing out my MySpace!

Google paid Fox?

[emjoi_gently]

Google paid Fox nearly a BILLION dollars to provide Fox with a Search Engine? Isn't that kind of backwards?

Re:Google paid Fox?

[dannay]

Not really considering the vasts amounts of targeted advertising information it will crawl

Re:Google paid Fox?

[FlyByPC]

It's part of Google's charitable "Don't be evil" motto. They're trying to help all of those poor Fox customers see both sides of the current-events issues. That's why they paid Fox; it's not as if Fox has ever actually been interested in disseminating information. Now they'll be able to find all of the FUD-mongering blogs on BOTH sides!

Re:Google paid Fox?

[iwsnet]

I'm surprised they announced in the release that Google is guaranteeing a minmium of $900 million in payments to News Corp. They usually don't give these figures out.

Re:Google paid Fox?

[dodobh]

For exclusive advertising rights. If you want to advertise on MySpace, you have to go through Google.

Re:Google paid Fox?

[Anonymous Coward]

They paid because Google sells advertisements. They are buying some high profile advertisement space to put those ads on.
Kinda like newspapers, one pays to place the ads, not the other way around. Fox knows that business.

--
Harvey

Re:Google paid Fox?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google was really trying to show their charity they could start by closing MySpace altogether...

Re:Google paid Fox?

[clickclickdrone]

>Isn't that kind of backwards?
Not when you take in to account the phrase 'provided certain web traffic targets are met'. You can bet the deal makes sense inasmuch as Google will make more money from click-thrus on the search results than it costs toprovide them and the deal will be structured accordingly.
It's quite scary how some things work in big-business land and things happen that make little sense to Joe Public. As an e.g., a certain UK bank pays a certain UK supermarket over GBP100k to take their change/coins off them in exchange for bank notes. The bank wins because the notes are worth more to them than the coin, the supermarket wins because it needs coins and gets some free money in to the bargain. Everyone's happy, it just looks nuts.

Re:Google paid Fox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, that's not what's happening at all. Google is, just as with all of their other advertising partners, sharing revenue with the site owner. They're simply guaranteeing that the revenue will be at least $900 million ("provided certain traffic targets are met") over the contract term.

Now how many AdSense sites would like to get an income guarantee from Google?

It's not a Myspace.com deal...

[IANAAC]

It's a News Corp deal.

It would be nice if the headline were less... sensationalist.

Re:It's not a Myspace.com deal...

[cryfreedomlove]

Are you implying that News Corp is sensationalistic? Where is the evidence for that?

Oh great

[0racle]

Like retarded, useless blogs weren't already clogging Googles usefulness. I can't wait till Googles replacement shows up so I can have a year or two of decent search results again.

Re:Oh great

[HaloZero]

I think they may need some time to scrape the gunk out of the tubes, first.

AARGH

[Anonymous Coward]

MySpace is owned by FOX. I find that realization wrenching. I'm not sure whether FOX has gone up in my estimation or MySpace has gone down. It hurts my brain to realize that big media may be clueful enough to be behind something like MySpace. It's like the dinosaurs realizing that they should grow fur and nurse their young.

Re:AARGH

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus fuck! Why is it the position of most slashdot type geeks that everything they find worthwhile or at least with merit is done by anyone but major corporations? You're a fucking myopic moron! Wake the fuck up!

Re:AARGH

[Anonymous Coward]

How does someone go from "Jesus fuck!" to myopic?

Okay here's a thought for you: Major corporations either use R&D department to leech ideas off the masses or have already had their good idea and come into riches. Rarely does a company come up with multiple good ideas in different, unrelated parts of the economy as a startup instead they bring people in to do their thinking for them. So everything worthwhile IS done by the little guy, how else do you think they become a corporation?

Company's never go corporate until they have something to lose. Except they can't have something to lose unless they've done something worthwhile, so by the time they become a big/evil corporation they've done their part and can be hated accordingly.

Re:AARGH

[Gleng]

It's like the dinosaurs realizing that they should grow fur and nurse their young.

Or build really, really strong umbrellas.

Taking food from my plate

[Weaselmancer]

Throwing chairs, etc. You know the drill.

Question

[antifoidulus]

How can you index a site where 90% of the words are one or 2 meaningless letters?

Re:Question

[Tokin84]

Forget letters... what about numbers replacing whole words! it hurts my brain even thinking about it!

Oh, and lets see, from a business stand point, this is probably a good move my Google. granted, $900M is a ton of money, but with myspace generating over 27.4 billion page views per month (article here), that's a huge income stream for Google. Even if only 1% of those people even click on a link, which is probably an underestimate, thats 274 million ad clicks per month. At a minimum of $0.01/click, that's $2.74M. Also, don't forget that Google does Cost Per Impressions, or per 1000 ad views. Lets assume you use minimums, as I have throughout this post, and you will see that Google generates another $6.85M/ad displayed. Since Google usually puts up about 5 ads per search, you can assume that they are making $34.25M/month at a minimum. Total, they have a revenue of appoximately $37M/month, all at minimums. Now, this doesn't take into account the fact that most advertisers pay more than the minimums since Google uses cost competitive advertising. However, at minimums, it only takes Google a little over 24 months to recover their costs and start making money. Seems pretty smart to me!

Then again, what do I know!

Re:Question

[babbling]

dats y dey ned ggl 2 do it!!!!!!!!

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if only 1% of those people even click on a link, which is probably an underestimate

I don't know if 1% is a low or high number for "average" consumers, but considering this is myspace, the fraction of people taken in by advertising ('tards, yo!) is quite possibly higher.

Re:Question

[mgblst]

You have to take into account how popular MySpace will be in a year or two? Will they still be number one. I would not bet yes, but google seems to be.

Of course I am willing to admit that, at this point, they probably know a little bit more about the business than I do!

Re:Question

[pla]

How can you index a site where 90% of the words are one or 2 meaningless letters?

You mean you've never used 'Google Translate"? Apparently this represents a kind of new acid-test for them, an attempt to make a language we'll call "Teenglish" searchable in plain English.


More seriously, I wonder why Google would pay for this at all. Others have mentioned the value of advertising, but that only happens if people do a search rather than go directly to their target page. And Google doesn't need to do anything for the "right" to search MySpace, they can "just do it". That's how Google works. I can find crap on Google I wrote probably a decade ago, yet they've never signed an exclusive deal with me...

Re:Question

[m85476585]

I find it kind of hard to believe that a search for 1337 doesn't find anything.

The Children!

[Anonymous Coward]

But.. but.. but... think of the children!

Nine hundred millidollars?

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have bargained harder. Just ten more and they could have bought an iTune.

*waits for the myspace bashing*

[CUatTHEFINISH]

Before it happens I just want you people to know, myspace is cool, so cool in fact George Bush and Dick Cheney have one to boost their approval rating. http://www.current.tv/pods/supernews/PD03297 Wait.. maybe it isn't so cool at all. I swear if I hear the name K-Fed one more time -_-.

Worth the Money

[natedubbya]

Maybe I'll be the first to say it, but Fox's buyout of myspace, which seemed astronomically high at the time, has now made all of its money back.

better ways

[spykemail]

I can think of a lot of better ways to blow $900 million dollars, for example, on vodka and hookers.

Re:better ways

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn straight.

Re:better ways

[aztec rain god]

Seems like a pretty good idea to me, kinda reminds me of the old strategy of the cigarette companies- hook 'em when they're young. Think of it like this, Google is an aggregator of personal information to be utilized for marketing purposes. It's not inconceivable that they're in bed with the likes of ChoicePoint and their ilk. So... if you have the kiddies' social networks mapped out, and you know what they're searching for, and perchance if you get some of them onto gmail, Google would pretty much have the keys to the kingdom of one of the only demographics with any disposable income right now.

Just a thought.

Re:better ways

[Cheapy]

Screw the vodkda and hookers, I just want the money!

Re:better ways

[Anonymous Coward]

Only on slashdot would this be modded informative.

Re:better ways

[kertong]

9 million $1 hookers, or 1 $9,000,000 hooker? Hmmm.

Re:better ways

[nFriedly]

Part of the $10 million I spent on gambling, part on booze and part on women. The rest I spent foolishly.
- George Raft

Re:better ways

[gaveawaymyname]

No complaints here. Google paid $900 million so we can search for vodka and hookers.

So many jokes, so little time

[CrazyJim1]

Myspace + Google + MTV = Pimp my Site

Re:So many jokes, so little time

[Overfiend1976]

http://www.pimpmypro.com/
Your a bit late on that joke :P

Re:So many jokes, so little time

[HAKdragon]

Unfortunatly, sites like that already exist. There's pimp myspace and pimp my profile and I'm sure many others.

Re:So many jokes, so little time

[mgblst]

I thought that it was Goggles signs a deal with Myspace. Makes more sense to me!

The goggles, zey do nothink!

Clarification :: Google paid, not was paid

[LordOfTheNoobs]

"Under the terms of the agreement, Google will be obligated to make guaranteed minimum revenue share payments to Fox Interactive Media of $900 million based on Fox achieving certain traffic and other commitments"

Requote from the Register article pertaining.

Google paid News Corp to be the sole advertiser. Not News Corp paid Google to provide search.

Thank you, that is all...

Re:Clarification :: Google paid, not was paid

[Mantrid42]

Wait, so now instead of banner ads that start playing music or games like "Help Bush out-knit Saddam" (I shit you not), I just get nice adsense ads? This is actually pretty awesome. Now if only there were a way to have a social life without needing MySpace...

Re:Clarification :: Google paid, not was paid

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if only there were a way to have a social life without needing MySpace

There is...

...but it's called facebook.

improving myspace

[steve426f]

damn, only search capabilities. I was hoping that Google had bought myspace so that the interface would actually be decent and not allow people to simultaneously play fifty mp3's and movies.

Re:improving myspace

[phantomfive]

You can play fifty mp3s simultaneously??? Sweet!!!

[ Go to add tons of songs to myspace account....furthuring the quest to make the most annoying web page ever ]

Re:improving myspace

[Anonymous Coward]

It's spelled: F I T T Y

One Word

[ackthpt]

Why then, are movies using myspace? Talladega nights advertises its offical url as http://myspace.com/rickybobby. Why? Why not just have a regular website? Or is there something i'm missing?

One word: Moo.

Re:finally something

[eonlabs]

I'm sure they won't. It's not like they're microsoft or something...

Re:finally something

[MikeWasHere05]

hopefully google with their vast infrastructure will speed up some of the site by using some sort of distributed computing for the search features, which i'm sure requires a lot of cpu speed to search close to 100 million users

I wish there was a "Im trying to sound smart but am not at all" mod option.

Re:finally something

[joeybagadonuts]

Your knowledge of myspace frightens me.

Re:google sucks

[tbmcmullen]

Didn't think google would be interested in that sort of thing......Cheezy if you ask me

You didn't think that a huge corporation would be interested in making more money? Maybe you should call up Google and let them know that they should start making decisions based on what you think is "cheezy".

Myspace doesn't HAVE a search function

[British]

...to begin with.

Go to "myspace groups". Try doing a search for anything. The result set is always ALL the groups, thus making it useless.

Heck, the 'add to favorites' has bad strings in it(look at the confirmation page). Apparently someone doesn't know how to spell favorite.

Hey myspace, how about signing a captcha deal to stop the spammer bots?

Re:Myspace doesn't HAVE a search function

[Short Circuit]

British (51765) said:

Apparently someone doesn't know how to spell favorite.

Is it you, or they, that's supposed to spell it "favourite?"

Just curious.

Re:Myspace doesn't HAVE a search function

[i kan reed]

I am 100% serious when I say no more than 40% of myspace users could pass a good captcha.

Theory vs. reality

[Anonymous Coward]

The theory is that the established market players are supposed to be helpless in the face of disruptive technology. The reality is that sometimes they aren't. Grow a sense of humor dude.

The Three Most Contradictory Stores On Slashdot

[tonyr1988]

First, we hear about accessibility. Then, we get protection.

And then, this. MySpace is the most inaccessible, untrustworthy, badly coded website made worse by the piles of pasted code by pre-teen posers onto their profile to add 7 streaming videos, 20 animated cursor trails, and a background image that matches perfectly with the text of the entire page.

What strange bedfellows....

"I'm Feeling Lucky"

[Hamster Lover]

Combining MySpace with Google takes "I'm Feeling Lucky" to a whole new level.

Ang how long before Google lets users "customize" their Google home page into an illiterate pile of horseshit featuring blaring Boy Band background "music", with hot pink on orange text all on top of some weird, annoying Anime/Sailor Moon/rice mobile backround?

Re:"I'm Feeling Lucky"

[nude-fox]

i for one am excited by this new oppertunity

Re:"I'm Feeling Lucky"

[paralaxcreations]

Apparently you haven't heard of the Personalized Homepage...I don't know why anyone would do that (on myspace either for that matter), but theoretically, one can.

Re:"I'm Feeling Lucky"

[Destoo]

Apparently you haven't heard of the Personalized Homepage...I don't know why anyone would do that (on myspace either for that matter), but theoretically, one can.

1) make it your homepage.
http://www.google.ca/ig?hl=en
2) add an RSS feed to your gmail.
3) add RSS/Atom feeds from whatever sites you check often. put them at the top.
4) add a classic game. anything.
5) add a "sticky notes" applet
6) add RSS/Atom feeds from sites that do not get updated often. put them at the bottom.

Voila. Simple welcome page with stuff YOU want to see. Nothing force fed to you. No ads.
Privacy? sure. Google now knows what sites I check out each day.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck is up with those Quaker Granola bar commercials?

Re:finally something

[gwbennett]

Can't you search mysapce at google.com by typing site:myspace.com ....the myspace pages are indexed afaik...

Re:google sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I should slap you mother

Re:finally something

[kevlarman]

that's a bit wordy for a mod option, how about 'too much myspace' ?

wow...

[marleyboy]

Look what Google just did. They cornered the advertising niche for the largest single techno-social group on the web. They are going to put ads for brand new cell phones in the myspace addicts hands, deliver performing equipment ads to bands, and they will probably turn around and let bands advertise their gigs for next to nothing.

As we watch it, google is inventing the new economy in the new society. They will establish themselves in such a way that a severe impact on Google's functions will be visibly noticed, and by everyone. So they collaborate with MTV, the largest major youth/indepedant media business in the myspace nation. One metaphor would be that MTV is the natural gas that these kids cook things up with.

This now becomes political, especially with Google where it is on the net-neutrality issues. Say the government forces Google to do something that adversely impacts these members of myspace. Voices begin to be heard, and these people will be voting soon.

Here's a couple of questions. How many members of MySpace will be turning old enough to vote by the time Bush is to be replaced? Is that enough to sway a victory? And, what's going to happen when the myspace nation finds a political leader?

The shit's boiling over and the fans are on high. I don't want to be in here but I'm wearing my yellow slicker.

Re:wow...

[Sinryc]

Holy fuck, that has to be one of the best written replys I have ever read. You hit the head of the nail right there.

Re:wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Look what Google just did. They cornered the advertising niche for the largest single techno-social group on the web."

Google didn't corner anything. Google is dependent upon its advertisers actually paying to advertise on MySpace. As an AdWords advertiser, I will be excluding MySpace from my campaigns the minute this agreement goes into effect. There's a reason MySpace is charging 10-20 cents CPM for banner ads. This is a blackhole for most advertisers. I have advertised with text ads on other social networking sites like Facebook (which has a more sophisticated audience than MySpace) and the results were less than impressive. I suspect that many AdWords advertisers will opt to exclude MySpace from their campaign distribution when they see the lower clickthru rates and conversions/ROI.

Re:wow...

[bky1701]

And, what's going to happen when the myspace nation finds a political leader?

Just when you think shit can't get worse... *Ducks*

Re:wow...

[tehcyder]

what's going to happen when the myspace nation finds a political leader?

Whatever.

Re:wow...

[digitalsushi]

i think you just burst my spleen with metaphors.

Re:wow...

[maxume]

Holy hell man, you just said a whole lot of nothing.

The only thing, I repeat, *only* thing MySpace has(had?) going for it is cool. And that's as good as gone when Fox shows ads after the Simpson's imploring watchers to visit their 'media property'. It might take a while, but I'm pretty sure it's over. Google might have time to recoup their investment.

As far as the 'MySpace nation' finding a political leader, Spock is too old or something. Sure they are a sizeable group, but for the majority, the connection to MySpace is not going to have a greater weight than everything else in their lives, and they will vote just like every other past generation of new voters. Not that much.

Re:wow...

[six11]

This now becomes political, especially with Google where it is on the net-neutrality issues. Say the government forces Google to do something that adversely impacts these members of myspace. Voices begin to be heard, and these people will be voting soon.

But, young people don't vote.

Re:wow...

[Khomar]

How many members of MySpace will be turning old enough to vote by the time Bush is to be replaced? Is that enough to sway a victory? And, what's going to happen when the myspace nation finds a political leader?

These are some very important questions, and the fact is that most people do not know. The one big event that you did not mention which makes this an even more pressing question is the retirement and eventual disappearance of the baby boom generation. For the past two or three decades, this country has effectively been run by this large, vocal group -- a group that as a whole has invested a lot of money but very little time into their children. As a result, you have a generation of people raised with every thing their hearts desired but lacking the insight into the wisdom and experience of the preceding generations. Thus, MySpace. It is a place of infinite freedom to them where they get the social interactions they did not get at home. Yet, they know so very little about the world, and there is no positive influence from the older generations to guide them away from the cliff.

Every generation rebels -- this is pretty much a fact, but even in these rebellions, the wisdom of the older generations tempers it. All that the young generation knows now is that the current system is broken. They see the actions of their parents and grandparents as mistakes, but they do not understand why those mistakes were made or why some of their "new" ideas were not implemented. For example, they are frustrated that we don't live in a true democracy without stopping to think why that might be (protection for minorities, the existence of fundamental laws and rights, etc.). The scary thing is that some day, the leader of our nation will have to be elected by the MySpace crowd because they will be the only ones left (the babyboomers won't live forever). What values have we passed down to them to help them make the decisions that will direct their future? What choices will they make?

While we can stumble along and learn lessons the hard way, there is great value in gleaning observations of reality from those who have already lived it -- even if we don't agree with them. Unfortunately, I think this is one of the values passed down -- a disrespect for the older generations. It is my fear that as the babyboomers move into retirement homes, they will become the loneliest generation our country has ever seen.

Re:wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 Funny (I'm out of mod points, okay?)

Re:wow...

[mister_slim]

It'd be interesting to see what happened if people on MySpace started a campaign to remind their friends to vote. If it turned into a meme it might have a significant effect. I guess we'll see. I'm sure someone will try it this fall.

Let me guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

you've been an unemployed tech marketer since 2000, right?

The Unbreakable

[Anonymous Coward]

It reminds me of this movie. Two opposite ends of a curve are finally meeting together. Google - Myspace, simply designed pages - stupidly designed pages,one is search engine, for other the search doesn't work. Oh well - now I know why MySpace (evil) was written to display so much crap . It was trying to find Google( do no evil).

Re:finally something

[unborn]

Only the ones linked to

Popularity Contest

[Tama00]

Myspace is a giant popularity contest.. and the winner is TOM!

P.S add me www.myspace.com/iamtama

I NEED FRIENDS

Re:Popularity Contest

[Anonymous Coward]

wow tama, I'm not sure if it's a joke or not...
If it is a joke, it's not quite overdone enough to be funny. But if it's not a joke, I can't see anything that sets it apart from the rest of the crowd.
Either way, if you want me to add you as a friend, you'll have to raise the bar.
Much love,
~some guy

Re:Popularity Contest

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't look like your the only one that needs friends.
Quote:

An abbreviated excerpt from my journal. (Sex)
Category: Writing and Poetry

It makes everything alright again. It excites me to no end. I need it. Alot. Probably too much. All the time. I long for more. Always more. It brings me to madness. It brings me to bliss. I need touch and interaction. Skin on mine. It is one of my core motivators. I go crazy for it, because of it.

Source

Looking at her site, she needs a web designer.

Google could have had this earlier

[basotl]

Google had the opportunity to buy MySpace before NewsCorp. Deals dissolved and I remember Google stating it wasn't anything they couldn't do themselves.
Makes you think if anyone is kicking themselves in the butt over not buying them as opposed to paying just to be the sole search and ad provider.
From the start I felt MySpace and Google are a perfect match. A site that needs good search capability and a provider that can provide it (and needs millions of people to look at their ads).
In addition I hate the MySpace ads. Maybe some content oriented Google ads will be less evasive.

Re:Google could have had this earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt Google is kicking itself for not buying Myspace - they still get what they want out of the site via this deal. If they bought Myspace it would hurt the Google brand (especially among the vital geek market) and it would force Google to waste a lot of time and money dealing with Myspace infrastructure (they would almost definitely want to rewrite the entire Myspace CMS). There are a lot more reasons but those are the two biggies. Plus I think Google knows Myspace is a fad that will crash and burn eventually, as long as it doesn't flame out within the next 12 to 18 months Google should make a solid profit out of their deal, at the very least they'll get a lot of interesting data that can be leveraged down the road.

Why all the hate?

[crotherm]

As I read these replies where the majority are negative on MySpace, it reminds me when AOL first had access to usenet, but not as bad. Back then, everyone was worried about the influx of nubes. And rightfuly so. But with MySpace, they have their own place, they are not making the haters go there, they are doing what the internet promised. I think it is a good thing. Kids today are treating the internet like a tool and not some secret society. If you all don't like it, do what we have been saying for other forms of media you don't care for, turn the damn channel!

Re:Why all the hate?

[Anonymous Coward]

obligatory:

I AGREE

Re:Why all the hate?

[tgeller]

Hey, I wrote a cover story about that for "The Net" magazine (now defunct) way back in 1995ish! :)

Re:Why all the hate?

[crotherm]

Damn... I remember reading that... LOL

I was a news admin back then....

Someone has to say it.

[clickclickdrone]

1. Build Search Engine
2. Pay people to use it
3. ?????
4. profit!

Re:Someone has to say it.

[rbarreira]

The ????? being people clicking on the ads.

Re:Someone has to say it.

[clickclickdrone]

Well duh! Yes, obviously. Do you shoot down all jokes that way or just some?

Re:Someone has to say it.

[rbarreira]

I just did it because there were apparently lots of other folks on the article who don't get why google is paying. Should have replied to them instead ;)

Re:Someone has to say it.

[clickclickdrone]

Oh, OK, you're forgiven ;-) I had posted an explanation of that myself earlier but you're probably right.

Re:Someone has to say it.

[Anonymous Coward]

First, that wasn't funny.
Second, you're doing it wrong. It's 1: Do something, 2: ???, 3: Profit. See the "Underpants Gnomes" episode of South Park.

Easy way to save $900 milltion

[BinBoy]

site:myspace.com

Re:Easy way to save $900 milltion

[BinBoy]

Oh. google is paying FOX. Misread that. Never mind. :/

I sense a great disturbance...

[Geminii]

As if 99 million internet users suddenly became fed up with advertising and blocked Adsense altogether.

what about what's next?

[Danzigism]

i personally think its unwise to put that amount of money in to a trend like myspace... remember a couple years ago? practically all the same camwhores on myspace, were on livejournal.. they just moved from vessel to vessel because the trend wears thin.. i think after time there will certainly be a myspace-crusher, and then this will be happening all over again.. hell, even AIM used to be big, but with the coming of several different clients that are better, its definitely taken its toll on AIM.. i think the same will happen in this case with myspace.. plus my girlfriend nearly left me because once, i totally left this profile of some chick's page on my computer once.. man she was pissed as shit.. needless to say, my account was deleted moments after that.. i feel better ever since!

Re:what about what's next?

[jez9999]

my girlfriend nearly left me because once, i totally left this profile of some chick's page on my computer

You need a new girlfriend.

Re:what about what's next?

[Danzigism]

or guys just need to grow up and stop thinking its ok to anonymously stalk other women..

Re:what about what's next?

[robertjw]

First, how do you know it was anonymous. Maybe he has a page that accurately portrays himself.

Second, how is it stalking? The girl created a myspace page and encouraged people to look at it. Looking at her page is NOT stalking.

Re:what about what's next?

[Danzigism]

first of all, i'm a guy, and i replied with that comment.. second, if you have a girlfriend, and you look through another girl's myspace page and browse through her pictures, then you are in the wrong.. believe me, i thought of every single way of defending my argument with her, but it all winds down to being loyal to the person you love.. in the real world, and in the cyber world.. i'd be pissed if she was looking at muscle studs on myspace all day.. myspace is a way for some men and some women to escape from their sucky real life.. and if you wanna do that, than thats fine.. but you should be aware that it is wrong, if you have someone to be loyal to..

Re:what about what's next?

[robertjw]

...but you should be aware that it is wrong, if you have someone to be loyal to..

That's all well and good, but to call browsing myspace 'anonymous stalking' isn't an accurate assesment. Cheating is cheating. Obviously, the status of the relationship is something two people have to decide for themselves, but browsing/meeting women on myspace is not much different than going to the bar and hitting on women. If you are doing it behind a girlfriend's back, it's wrong (if she knows about it and is OK with it that's completely between you two).

I'm not condoning any unethical behaviour that would undermine a relationship, I just don't like the idea of acceptable, from a legal standpoint, web activities like myspace being equated to, an illegal act, stalking.

Re:what about what's next?

[Danzigism]

surely its stalking.. what part of repeatedly going to someone's profile and checking to see if they have new pictures of themselves isn't stalking?? and i used the correct word when I said anonymous.. because nobody knows that you're doing it accept yourself.. you're hiding.. to each his own, but i'm afraid i stand by how I feel regarding this, and encourage others to stop defending such non-sense.. myspace is merely a lazy man's blog.. you don't feel like reading about how people are doing, you rather SEE how they're doing and judge their life based on their pictures and are too embarassed to confront someone in real life.. its fucking creepy..

Re:what about what's next?

[robertjw]

what part of repeatedly going to someone's profile and checking to see if they have new pictures of themselves isn't stalking??

So if I go to my friend's blog to see if they've posted new pictures of their kids it's stalking? Maybe if I go to CNN to look for pictures of President Bush I'm stalking him?

Sure, what you are describing now could be construed as 'anonymous stalking' and in your particular situation it may have been, but to describe anyone that goes out to myspace and browse the profiles a stalker is extreme. In fact, unless you are obsessing over one particular individual it stalking shouldn't be used at all. If you are just out checking pictures of the hot girls, while potentially creepy, its not stalking.

Re:what about what's next?

[Danzigism]

your defense rests.. hopefully..

Re:what about what's next?

[Danzigism]

no but seriously, there's obviously a huge difference in what myspace is, and what CNN is.. CNN is not an internet community where people go to meet other people.. the place is full of creeps and weirdos.. yes, not all of the people are creeps, but still.. do we really need more ways for these teens to cry for more attention when the only people fucked up enough to give them attention are grownd adults who are fuckin pedophiliac freaks? i wasn't necessarily talking about looking at random girl's pictures, but rather the girls you know, in your area.. a huge point for sites like these are to find friends from your area.. and thats why its scary.. these kids pour their whole freakin life on their myspace page.. between where they party on the weekends, to what classes they have at school.. and there are plenty of creeps out there, that cyber-stalk.. paying attention to every little detail about one particular person's life.. i'm not saying everything does it, but the people do exist, and myspace has merely made it easier for you to "accept" stalking in a cyber fashion.. almost as if it's OK..

Apparently...

[CrimsonScythe]

...the search button on MySpace will be called "OMG!!! GOOGLE!!!".

Re:finally something

[popeyethesailor]

I wish there was a "+1 This guy posted just what I wanted to post" option..

thanks for the add

[Anonymous Coward]

on the few times i have been sucked into myspace and spent half an hour realising i can find out which of my friends are still in contact i stop and wonder.. all these pages say are:

              "THANKS FOR THE ADD"

it appears to be a network with only one centence repeated over and over and over.
google is paying to list the sentence "thanks for the add" about a googleplex over. [sorry but its the bigest number i know]
the sole reason i dont understand myspace is that people seem to hardly even talk any other words than "thanks for the add". this is obviously in reference to 'thanks for adding me as a friend' if that realy worth searching through.?

Re:finally something

[Andrew Kismet]

If Myspace were to be analysed my a computer, it would probably identify it as either a linkfarm or a tool to confuse web spiders...

So Wonderful!

[s1xwyre]

I, for one, welcome our adolescent, neon-pink, band-worshipping overlords.

Why not a deal with DIGG?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not a deal with digg?

Just take a look at this, to cite an example.

Why is it popular?

[solidtransient]

Myspace is popular for a few reasons. They make it easy for anyone to put up a page about themself and start adding friends, blogging and leaving comments about how "cool" you think other people are. Its instant, its easy, its free and all of your friends have a page. Shouldn't you? Its real Internet peer pressure and lets face it, a lot of people on myspace have no clue about getting a web host and/or building websites. MySpace isn't designed for power users.

Its also an instant way to attempt to get popularity. Dorky kid #1 with 2000 friends feels better about himself than Jock #1 with 10 friends. Also, there are a lot of bands on the myspace wagon. What 17 year old wouldn't want to be "friends" with Green Day?

Strings Attached

[Para618]

I haven't posted here before, but it seems like this has been overlooked enough that I should mention it.

"The deal will see Google pay Fox at least $900m (£472m), provided certain web traffic targets are met."

It makes absolutely no difference if MySpace becomes unpopular, because then Fox doesn't get paid. The only risk Google is taking is if people don't click the ads, but if they simply stop going, there's no problem.

Another addition to Web 2.0!

[version2]

Gspace, here we come!

It sounded nice, didn't it?

[Lord of Hyphens]

Well, damn. Google's "Don't be Evil" policy went right out the window.

They have millions...

[Archeopteryx]

...and REAL media has to take donations; http://www.whiterosesociety.org/

Do no evil?!?

[noidentity]

So much for Google's "do no evil" mantra. They're working with pure evil now!

Re:Do no evil?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

So much for Google's "do no evil" mantra.

A lot of people get this wrong for some reason. I don't know why, maybe you're all just not paying very much attention.

Anyway, their motto is "don't be evil", not "do no evil". There's a difference. =)

$900m = $0.90

[LesGrieve]

In SI, the prefix of m represents milli (multiply by 0.001) and the prefix M represents mega (multiply by 1,000,000) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix

Google a perfect fit for Myspace......

[GI Jones]

I have been using myspace for about 2 years now and have thought over the past year that Google should really find a way to get involved with Myspace for the following reasons:

1. Myspace has a pig slow way of accessing vast amounts of data, google could help
2. one word: blogging
3. piss poor loss of advertising opportunity
4. Google wants to manage the worlds data... myspace is a significant repository of useful data

I personally have thought that Myspace has been missing the boat when it comes to advertising opportunity. Not every person using myspace is an oversexed, cellphone ringtone crazed youth. What service could more specifically target an advertisement? Is there any place on the net where so many people disclose more about what they are personally interested in? I welcome Google to the myspace world and look forward to the tools they can offer. Actually, anyone who could help Myspace change those stupid dating service ads is a help in my book.

just my $0.02

Good for all!

[WeeBit]

First bait them. Then you trap them. Google is smart, they know how important MySpace is. Myspace can be good for both sides of the fence. As long as MySpace secures the place. I just wonder if the whole MySpace website will be indexed? I worry about those teens with accounts there.

Now that he's rich...

[danwesnor]

With $900M, now maybe Tom can afford to hire a programmer who can write decent code. Near as I can tell, the back-end was writen in HyperCard by Tom's little brother.

Re:Now that he's rich...

[trupoet]

lol Hypercard....those were the days

Now

[Kelz]

Google needs to append their business motto. "Don't be evil, but don't necessarily be smart either."

Re:finally something

[Anonymous Coward]

> I wish there was a "I'm trying to sound smart but am not at all" mod option.

You must be new here. On Slashdot, we call that (+1, Insightful) :-)

It would be nice...

[Zorque]

If Google stipulated "you need to fix your code before we'll work with you." They could even make the excuse that they need clean code in order to execute their search features. Think of it: a Myspace that works once in a while!

It's clicks _or_ impressions

[kurtdg]

[...] 274 million ad clicks per month [...] that's $2.74M. Also, don't forget that Google does Cost Per Impressions, or per 1000 ad views. [...] generates another $6.85M/ad displayed.

It's either/or. Either you pay Google for clicks, or you pay for impressions.

RIP Orkut

[zanderredux]

Given what happened to Orkut (the Brazilian takeover), I'm not surprised that Google'd go elsewhere....

Re:MySpace is fucking lame ;-) ---

[kruhft]

Oops, forgot the winkey smiley face at the end of that subject.

I guess sarcasm is dead.

Oh well, my hits went through the roof.

www.myspace.com/kruhft