Did News Corp (Fox) help or hurt MySpace by purchasing it in 2005?
News Corp announced plans to buy MySpace for $580M in July 2005. MySpace had 22 million users and grew at an amazing 2M users per month at that time. In early 2007, MySpace has over 166M users and ...
News Corp announced plans to buy MySpace for $580M in July 2005. MySpace had 22 million users and grew at an amazing 2M users per month at that time. In early 2007, MySpace has over 166M users and analysts estimate over $300M in annual revenue.
MySpace faced legal challenges, government regulation and safety concerns -- News Corp stepped up with its vast resources of lawyers, publicity and safety initiatives.
MySpace has a very hip culture -- both of its users and employees. Many fear that the corporate governance by the mature News Corp may have stunted MySpace's opportunities. (more)
MySpace faced legal challenges, government regulation and safety concerns -- News Corp stepped up with its vast resources of lawyers, publicity and safety initiatives.
MySpace has a very hip culture -- both of its users and employees. Many fear that the corporate governance by the mature News Corp may have stunted MySpace's opportunities. (more)
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Hurt MySpace
Site should be entertaiment agnostic but has been turned into a marketing shill for Fox crap. If there were ever two brands that don't belong together, its MySpace and Fox (circa 2005). But since they are now homogenized into one, Fox got a little cooler and MySpace got uncool really fast. It certainly helped Facebook if you look at their traffic since the merger.
Helped MySpace
I'm not sure Intermix would have been able to support the kind of growth MySpace was experiencing. Growing from 22m to 166m reg users required lots of bandwidth, human personnel cost, etc. Because of its resource base, NewsCorp was able to easily support this growth. I highly doubt the VCs behind Intermix would have injected enough capital to properly support that ramp.Hurt MySpace
It should have sold to Viacom. It would have gotten MTV age marketing skills, finesse, content and cash to grow servers. Viacom would have gotten the latest buzz and leg up into online advertizing.Hurt MySpace
hurt in cred, but probably not monetarily. but i think people are getting tired.Hurt MySpace
MySpace got very boringHurt MySpace
Site should be entertaiment agnostic but has been turned into a marketing shill for Fox crap. If there were ever two brands that don't belong together, its MySpace and Fox (circa 2005). But since they are now homogenized into one, Fox got a little cooler and MySpace got uncool really fast. It certainly helped Facebook if you look at their traffic since the merger.Helped MySpace
Well it made the top players wealthy, it propelled the website to even higher levels of fame and provided almost limitless amounts of capital. I think this helped Myspace, don't you?Had no affect on MySpace
It was way off and running prior to the Fox purchase but as it is with anything that hits scale its going to be more and more homogenized as it matures and evolves as a property within the News Corp portfolio. Think MTV.Hurt MySpace
MySpace did not have the best technology, The site frequently went down. What it had was "buzz". That kind of street cred that can't be bought by the biggest of corporations. When any independent site with "buzz" is acquired by a company without buzz, the net result is that the site loses some of its credibility.Helped MySpace
MySpace greatly benefited from Rupert's deep pockets, but unfortunately, I don't know if MySpace will last.Hurt MySpace
MySpace looks like a fox marketing machine right now. I think that is putting off many usersHelped MySpace
I suppose that depends on your definition of "hurt". If by hurt you mean their user base felt betrayed and that MySpace sold its soul to The Man and as a result main stream Johnny Public came a long and killed an underground yet burgeoning website...then yes, News Corp killed the Social Networking Star.On the other hand, if by "hurt" you mean MySpace lost the opportunity to be a larger company, than I disagree. The publicity alone from the merger was enough to take MySpace out of this stratosphere and essentially put terms like "Social Networking" and "Web 2.0" on the map. News Corp did for MySpace what Colgate, Hoover, and Google did for their respective industries, turned a brand name into a verb. Do you MySpace?