Did Rupert Murdoch wait way too long to fix MySpace? It’s easy to get that impression from the News Corp. earnings call today.
The takeaway: The site is losing traffic and money and is going to get at least $100 million less from Google than it once thought. “It’s a work in progress,” News Corp. says, over and over again.
It’s easy to get the impression that everyone uses Twitter. And many people do! But new statistics indicate that four of five Web users are still Twitter-free. Worth keeping in mind as Google and Microsoft start plugging tweets into search results.
Well look at that: EMI Music Group, which had been working on a licensing deal with music start-up Grooveshark but ended up suing it instead, now has a licensing deal with Grooveshark after all.
Employees at News Corp.’s MySpace have been waiting to find out who their new ad sales boss will be. And, here she is: Nada Stirratt, who until today was running digital sales for Viacom’s MTV Networks.
Stirratt has her work cut out for her. The struggling social networking site, HQed in Beverly Hills, has been trying to reboot its image, spur innovation in its product and, most of all, pull itself out of a too-long slump, even as longtime rival, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook, has seen explosive growth.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt used the opening moments of a New York City press conference to reinforce a message he’s been delivering for several weeks: The worst is over, things are looking up, and Google is spending accordingly.
Steve Ballmer says he doesn’t expect to do much search-related M&A, which makes sense since there’s little left to buy. But he may be willing to pay for search. Ask AOL.
You already know this, but it’s always good to be reminded: In online video, there’s YouTube, and then there’s everybody else. Today’s data point: ComScore’s August video report, which shows Google’s video site generating 10 billion views and owning 39.6 percent of the market. That’s 10 billion views, and that’s just counting Web surfers from the U.S. Factor in international visitors and…it would be a lot bigger.
Good news (potentially) for T. Rowe Price and the other investors plowing $100 million into the revenue-free start-up: The service’s users absolutely love clicking on ads, says a new study.
What happens to a start-up whose business never materializes? One option is to try to peddle the company based on the value of its human capital–aka the “acqhire.” Or would-be employers can simply wait for the start-up to flame out, then pick up the people they want on an a-la-carte basis. Did that just happen with Time Warner Cable and former Joost CTO Jason Gaedtke?
Just how big are MySpace and Facebook? Big enough to account for nearly one in five of the display ads Web marketers buy in the U.S. That has nothing to do the number of dollars the two social networks generate, since their ad impressions are famously cheap. But at least it gives you a sense of the services’ potential.
The owner of The Wall Street Journal tries to convince other publishers join up and charge readers for online news. Tough job! Even tougher: Creating news worth paying for.
As Kara Swisher just reported, News Corp.’s MySpace has hired media consulting firm Media Link, along with Media Link President Wenda Harris Millard, to overhaul the social network’s sales group.
Here’s the complete internal memo from CEO Owen Van Natta, which describes Millard’s position as head of the ad sales group as an “interim” one, and announces that former sales boss Jeff Berman is out.
Now that MySpace has finished its acquisition of iLike, what is it going to do with it? Don’t think music, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta stressed in a press conference today, think about “socialization of content.”
What does that mean? It means the social network has spent $19.5 million on engineering talent to help overhaul its site.
Michael Jackson’s funeral service starts at 1 pm Eastern today and you will have to try very hard not to see it: In addition to wall-to-wall coverage on the news channels, any Web site capable of live-streaming the event will be doing so. Is the Internet ready for the coming traffic jam? I’m betting it is.
Did you want to buy or sell a media or tech company in the last six months? Chances are you didn’t: New data from banker The Jordan, Edmiston Group say the M&A market for the first half of 2009 was nearly nonexistent, at least compared to the post-MySpace Web 2.0 heyday. One exception to the drought: A booming market for mobile companies.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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