Money where MySpace's mouth is

Much debate has taken place recently about the longevity of MySpace, especially since it has shown some early signs of stalling. But rather than engage in group hand-wringing rituals over the future, maybe parent company News Corp. and others should simply focus on the present.

"We've just scratched the surface of how to monetize it," News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin said this week. That slowness may turn out to be a case study for how not to run a social network.

The best way to approach the fleeting-fad syndrome is to treat all related businesses with an appropriately temporal time frame. If MySpace does turn out to be a fleeting fad, News Corp. could try to get ahead of the cycle and seed the site with pointers to the next budding networks or specialty communities. All forms of media have shelf lives, and social networks are no exception; they're just on an accelerated life cycle, as are all things on the Web.

Blog community response:

"There is one bit of info in the Mediapost article that '20 percent of the ad dollars comes from display impressions, with the rest stemming from sales of remnant inventory.' What does that mean? Remnant inventory of what? I'm extremely curious about what types of personal information MySpace's advertisers use for targeting: profile info? behavior? I am almost positive it's both, although I can't seem to find any indication from News Corp one way or another."
--Tiara.org

"After movies (Pirates of the Caribbean) and hamburgers (Burger King), MySpace opens its engine to the mobile industry via Motorola's My Very Thin Space, a profile created for the mobile brand??s latest, Motorola Q. As of Friday, June, 9, the profile has accumulated 2,499 MySpace friends. Could this be online advertising 2.0?"
--Pandora Squared

"While fads may be only superficial reflections of culture, the effects are deepening. It feels like we are rushing towards something like global monoculture at an unbearable pace, like the momentum begun with the first primitive trading caravan is reaching terminal speed."
--Kingsbridge Correct

[cattiej]

Michael Buble is a great singer, sounds like Frank Sinatra. Remember when you could understand what the singer was saying? Well, we have no troule understanding Michael. He also sorta sounds like Harry Connick. The picture on this piece shows a very tired looking Michael. I hope he has a long and happy marriage. The best thing to do is move away from Hollywood and live in a normal town, raise your kids to work around the house, teach them to get a job, go to college and make something of themselves instead of the typical Hollywood kids who become dope heads. Michael, you only get once change at make it right and make it last. One way to make a marriage last is to take time to pray together, it's worked for us for 46 years and counting. When you get married, live as normal a life as you can, there are many actor's, entertainment people, who live normal lives, those are the ones that last. If you have problems, get some professional help because nobody's perfect. The best thing I can say about being married for 46 years is that we wished we could do it all over again and then again and then again. Promise to love each other forever, forever, and then forever after that. This goes for all you married folks and for all you folks that want to get married. If you want to have children, get married first, God sorta likes things to go that way and it makes it much easier on you children. If you don't have a commitment, then your kids won't either.

[armyoftwelve]

My wife has always thought this guy was gay. Good for him!

[cyclingpete]

"Good for him"??? So are you implying that if he was gay that would be "Bad for him"? Thats a pretty dumb thing to say! I think your wife must be a ****!..."Good for her"