MySpace Gets a Redesign to Attract Advertisers, But Is It Too Late?
Via Adotas, MySpace is undergoing a redesign in order to improve design and try to attract in more interactive ads:
The update is aimed to boost navigation and better integrate interactive ads within the site â€" and broaden its appeal and build out its base of 118 million users worldwide.But is it too late? MySpace is rapidly losing ground to Facebook, and it's reached the point of saturation -- anyone who will sign up for MySpace probably has. In addition, years of ugly design (and horror stories of pedophiles) has seen many users (and advertisers) flee. But then, it's maybe social networking as a whole that's done with. From a report today on GigaOm:
But Schmidt's motivation notwithstanding, what he says is true: research agency, lowered its 2008 advertising estimates for U.S. social networks to $1.43 billion from $1.6 billion. They expect Facebook will take in $265 million and MySpace will bring in $755 million, down from earlier projections of $305 million and $850 million, respectively.
The true problem, of course, is that all social networks are hard to monetize because unlike during static web surfing, advertisers are finding it nearly impossible to get those click throughs. Which is why it will be interesting when I attend the SWAT Summit next week, focused on marketing and advertising in social networking, and see if there's any (credible) ways to finally turn the vast number of eyeballs on social networks into any sort of real cash.