Eideard

Myspace was once the Internet’s equivalent of the hottest nightclub in town. In its heyday, the world’s dominant social network attracted some 3 million bands, 8,000 comedians and countless filmmakers and wannabes who came to see and be seen.

Now, Myspace is seemingly no place — a digital castoff that corporate parent News Corp. sold for $35 million in cash and equity to an Orange County digital media firm specializing in online advertising. That’s a fraction of the $580 million that the media giant controlled by Rupert Murdoch paid to acquire the site a scant six years ago, and well shy of its one-time $65-billion valuation.

Its dramatic fall is both a consequence of the fickle nature of today’s Internet generation as it is a tale of mismanagement, missed opportunities and miscalculations. Myspace’s decline — hastened by its failure to match the innovations of its chief rival, Facebook, speaks to what can happen when a mainstream media company seeks to capture technological lightning in a bottle…

The decision to acquire the hot social networking site landed Murdoch on the cover of Wired magazine, where he was lauded for embracing the Internet ahead of his old-media rivals, although critics ridiculed him for overpaying…

But Myspace’s red-hot success was short-lived.

The number of monthly visitors in the United States peaked in October 2008 at 76.3 million, according to measurement firm ComScore Digital Analytix. Over the last two years, the social network has shed an average of 1 million users a month, and its monthly traffic had dwindled to about 35 million users by May.

As Myspace’s users headed for the exits, so did the advertisers. Researcher EMarketer projects Myspace’s ad revenue at $184 million this year, down from $470 million in 2009. Myspace proved a drag on News Corp.’s earnings, with the division that includes the social network posting a profit only once in the last six years…

Murdoch knows how to leverage sports coverage in depth into profit in print media. He did the same with business news with the Financial Times. Dicking around with content, policy and politics at the Wall Street Journal may yet put that venerable paper into irreversible decline. All of his print acquisitions were worth siphoning capital from – while adding in deeper coverage of shallower topics when needed.

The folks who bought MySpace for 6% of what Murdoch paid have a sensible chance to turn it into a moneymaker, again. That’s good enough. Whether they wish to go farther than that – and can – is another tale, a different opportunity.

Do you spell Ballmer with one or two “l’s”?
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Microsoft has had talks with News Corp about a tie up, which would involve News Corp getting paid to take its news websites off Google. News Corp, which owns such papers as the Wall Street Journal and the Sun, started the discussions, which were at an early stage, the source said.

News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch has said he wants to make people pay for access to his news websites. Other publishers including The New York Times are also searching for ways to charge for news online, convinced that they must not give news through search engines such as Google and Yahoo…

Microsoft, which relaunched its search engine as Bing this year, has been looking for ways to challenge market leader Google.

Earlier this year, it signed a 10-year global web search partnership with Yahoo, a deal that U.S. and European antitrust regulators are evaluating.

This not only sounds like an anti-trust violation, seems to me it would be restraint of trade under the Robinson-Patman Act. Not that either Murdoch or Ballmer really gives a hoot about ethics.

Then, there are reasonable considerations of the reception this cabal might receive among ordinary users of the Web and search engines. Yes, I might be concerned that Google wasn’t offering me 100% of what’s extant. No, I wouldn’t touch Bing with a 10-foot pole if they were skewing search results to offer up their business partners.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Media giant News Corp. is holding talks with other newspaper publishers on forming a consortium that would charge for news online and on portable devices, The Los Angeles Times reported.

The newspaper said News Corp.’s chief digital officer, Jonathan Miller, is believed to have met with representatives of The New York Times Co., Washington Post Co., Hearst Corp. and Tribune Co., publisher of The Los Angeles Times…

News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch said earlier this month he would begin charging readers of online versions of his newspapers in the coming year.

News Corp already charges for its Wall Street Journal website and claims it is the most successful paid news site on the Internet.

Other Murdoch papers include the New York Post, The Times of London, the Sun and The Australian, among others.

Journalism Online, a company launched in April which seeks to help news organizations make money on the Web, announced last week that more than 500 newspapers and magazines have agreed to join the venture as affliliates.

It said a payment platform would go online in the fall which would allow subscribers to access paid content at the websites of the affiliates using a universal Journalism Online account.

Does it matter that this violates anti-trust regulations in most Western democracies? Yes, the Web lives independent of national laws in many cases. But, I doubt if commerce and access to information would be exempt from regulation.

Like anyone who favors a corporate trust – in this instance a newspaper trust online – the Prime Minister wants to be king. Murdoch thinks he should be the Boss of Bosses in this Mafia..