MySpace to Put YouTube, Microsoft, USAir, Visa Out of Business

hog.jpgAh the curse of success. It’s so wonderfully evident in these comments reported by TechCrunch today:

  • News Corp. (MySpace) chief operating officer Peter Chernin told company investors today that, “If you look at virtually any Web 2.0 application, whether its YouTube, whether it’s Flickr, whether it’s Photobucket or any of the next-generation Web applications, almost all of them are really driven off the back of MySpace.”
  • Said Chernin: “Given that most of their traffic comes from us,” he said, “if we build adequate if not superior competitors, I think we ought to be able to match them if not exceed them.”

Summarizes TechCrunch: COO of News Corp. says that Web 2.0 is leaching traffic off of MySpace, that they can build their own services to compete with any of it and that there’s going to be an increasingly aggresive commercial push on the site. That sounds both dangerously arrogant and like a real validation of fears that MySpace dependency is too risky for outside developers.

WillVideoForFood’s thoughts:

  • More aggregation of online video by a company as unfocused as MySpace would be dangerous. Even if it only came at the expense of the current market leader (YouTube).
  • My dad always said “the pig gets fat and the hog gets slaughtered.” Watch for a cooler MySpace that identifies new needs instead of stealing share from other tangential services.
  • Revenue sharing is a big deal to me, but the modest money that can be earned is even more substantial to the young demographics of YouTube and MySpace. Wait until they get wind of the fact that they can make more cash on videos than babysitting and working at Starbucks.

6 thoughts on “MySpace to Put YouTube, Microsoft, USAir, Visa Out of Business”

  1. Although it doesn’t seem to put the young folks off, pretty much everything about MySpace’s user interface is horrible. You can’t organize or search your friend list – stuff as basic as that. The (scary?) reality is that they have so much ground for improvement in so many areas. Lord knows what happens if they start delivering a more intuitive, functional user experience….

  2. Few thoughts —

    “Virtually any Web 2.0 application… are really driven off the back of MySpace.”

    That’s beyond arrogant. It’s a good thing corporate executives don’t have to worry about being held accountable.

    Murdoch paid $580 million for MySpace. If he’s willing to dump that kind of change into a semi/barely/non?-profitable web site, then he may just be silly enough to throw more money at it to create these services (which, last I checked, aren’t exactly money making machines, anyway).

    What makes sense is for him to buy YouTube. That way, he’ll have direct access to all the Dorito-munching, zit-popping, Mountain Dew-drinking zombies of the world.

    Then, as long as he can sign up Frito Lay, Proactiv and Pepsi as advertisers – News Corp may actually see a return on their investment. Probably by some time in the mid-to-late 23rd century.

    -joe

  3. Well put, Joe. I’ve always struggled that I (as a 37-year-old married guy) have “one foot in the YouTube demo and one foot out.”

    Seems you’ve clarified it for me. I do baked Doritos, Diet Mountain Dew and get apthous ulcers instead of zits.

  4. MySpace is Special! Just Like Santa Clause was..

    Until you learn more and more and more,

    then one day your like fuck myspace and Santa Clause damit’

    phil tadros
    metroproper.com

  5. I have never joined MySpace, and I am proud of it. MySpace came about when I was still in college, and everyone was joining. I never joined because I had my own domain for blogging. I even joined LiveJournal and Xanga because friends had accounts and I wanted to post comments. But as soon as my friends joined MySpace, they no longer received comments from me because I never joined. Ha!

Comments are closed.