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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."
Google paid Fox nearly a BILLION dollars to provide Fox with a Search Engine? Isn't that kind of backwards?
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!
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. - Aldous Huxley
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.