Re: MySpace Helps News Corp Lose $363 Million

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 7:38 AM, Christine Perey<cperey@perey.com> wrote:
> Hi Melvin,

[snip-]

> I think we may be seeing that MySpace has yet to identify the successful
> (lucrative) business models for a successful Open Social Web strategy. I
> would not be drawing this conclusion, as a business person, however, one
> conclusion companies could draw from the announcement is that the Open
> Social Web strategy which MySpace has pursued since Dec 2008-ish, is NOT
> good for their business (at least not in the first year).

It's unclear how widely deployed  the Open Social Web strategy has
been for Myspace. Anyone know? I was under the impression they were
only using a limited bit of the API last time I checked. However, it's
possible integration with the mobile web and getting users involved
(not just developers) in the open strategy might work out well, as it
would give more avenues for advertising.

> Given its current composition and the focus of the W3C, in general, I don't
> believe that the SWXG is going to be the forum where we will find
> mind-blowing business strategy recommendations emerging. On the contrary,
> the lack of business case is a significant risk for the future work of the
> W3C in the area of Social Web. I fear it could be extremely difficult to
> "sell" the SWXG's technical recommendations to the most successful social
> networking companies, and perhaps to those who strive to become successful,
> because no one has yet been able to formulate the Open Social Web business
> case (make the financial justifications).

I'd like to see about a third of our use-cases based on businesses,
and there are a number of actions to write them up. Let's try to write
some over the next week.

The W3C is a standards body, and while the W3C is not a market
strategy firm, if companies in the market want a standard for open
social networking and they have business cases for it, these cases
*should* be part of the use-case documentation and worked into the
final report.

> This business case may emerge in the future, in which case an SWXG report
> (or the work of the SW WG in the future) should point it out!

Hopefully we can at least make some progress this year!

> Christine
>
> Spime Wrangler
>
> cperey@perey.com
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>
>
> Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>
> News Corp., which owns FOX, The New York Post, the Wall Street
> Journal, and other media outlets, hasn’t been doing so well in the
> last year. The company’s net income was $5.4 billion in the 2008
> fiscal year, but the numbers they released this afternoon for 2009
> show the company heading in the complete opposite direction: a loss of
> about $3.4 billion.
>
> News Corp specifically blames MySpace for a loss of $363 million to
> the company’s bottom line.
>
> http://mashable.com/2009/08/05/myspace-news-corp-losses/
>
> IMHO, these really is the strongest possible incentive to get your
> social web strategy right (hopefully the SWXG final report can
> contribute to this!).
>
> Perhaps it's not simply that the social web can make the companies
> that get it right, but maybe it can break the ones that get it wrong?
>
>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 11 August 2009 20:20:27 UTC