Following on from my essay, I think Murdoch’s purchase of myspace.com is very shrewd. Now he gets it, certainly following his recent lament on Media Corp.’s earlier Net illiteracy. What’s the biggest, most-established community-forming .com out there on the block at an affordable price? We’ll buy that one. If he follows through and executes well, his competitors should be very scared. James Enck has often lamented, for example, the unidirection nature of Sky TV’s broadcast network in a conversational era. Now you can see where the backchannel is coming from. I’m impressed at his adaptability. The customers want a sense of meaning in life through participatory media? Then that’s what we’ll sell them!
One last anecdote. I once watched a presentation by the founder of popular pre-teen/teen site Habbo Hotel. It’s a strange but immensely popular 3D chat cum semi-structured virtual reality. Paraphrasing inaccurately, he said one depressed, overweight, spotty, teenage girl said that it was the first time she felt she could truly be who she really was without being judged just by her appearance.
Cathartic or confirmatory? I’ll let you be the judge.
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I subscribe to the view that there is a very fine line between a maverick and an idiot.
That said, I don't see myspace's acquisition as very shrewd at all. If anything it was a knee jerk reaction because the research showed they had a gaping hole in the 16-24 year old demographic. How to fill it? Splash some cash…
Just yesterday, I read about some myspace users fearing fees regardless of the status quo being promised. Yet I see two fundamental issues:
1) News at its core still has a broadcast mindset. The 16-24 demographic doesn’t want to be advertised _at_! Can News manage the change to "we media"?
2) I’m guessing myspace participants are anti-establishment… is that not what being a teen is all about? (Counter argument: Viacom has done very well with MTV thank you very much... )
Don’t forget the “Innovators dilemma.” At conferences I have seen News Digital execs lament the establishment inertia within. You can’t turn a super tanker on a dime.
Then again, perhaps they are the Mavericks and I the idiot. Good luck to them.