I’ve been out of the game for over a week, so I apologize if this is old news, but this quote from Rupert Murdoch caught my attention.
From Paid Content Murdoch also discussed his thought process in buying MySpace in July 2005 for $580 million: “It was apparent at that time that while the economy was booming, TV and newspaper revenues were not moving up as they once would have in such an environment. That represented a permanent change in the media landscape, from an economic viewpoint. So we looked elsewhere. We looked at Intermix [MySpace’s partial owner at the time of News Corp.’s acquisition] and we saw that MySpace was growing very quickly. We also thought it would be nice fit with Fox Sports, which attracts a younger demographic. Looking at MySpace now, ad revenue is $25 million a month and growing. It’s a huge success.”
I don’t know what his margins are, but $25 million per month in revenue ought to help pay back his inititial investment pretty darn fast. Interesting to note that part of Murdoch’s rationale for buying Myspace is that it’s younger demo complimented what he already had in Fox Sports viewership. Synergy between sports and social networks. Now there’s a novel concept!
For anyone lucky enough to be in LA on April 26, you might want to check out Paid Content’s first conference, “Economics of Social Media“. Check out this speaker list:
– Peter Adderton, Founder and CEO, Amp’d Mobile
– Simon Assaad, CEO, Heavy.com
– John Battelle, Chairman, Federated Media
– Michael Birch, CEO, Bebo
– Marco Boerries, Senior Vice President, Connected Life, Yahoo
– Ilene Chaiken, Executive Producer, The L Word/CEO, OurChart.com
– Alan Citron, GM, TMZ.com
– Shawn Conahan, CEO, Intercasting Corp
– Toby Coppel, SVP, Corporate Development, Yahoo
– Josh Deutsch, CEO, Downtown Records
– Esther Dyson, Edventure Holdings
– Jason Hirschhorn, President, Entertainment Group, Sling Media
– Ross Levinsohn, former President of Fox Interactive Media
– Hadi Partovi, COO, iLike
– Larry Shapiro, Executive Vice President, Walt Disney Internet Group
– Quincy Smith, President, CBS Interactive
– Tad Smith, CEO, Reed Business Information
– Ken Stern, CEO, NPR
– Kara Swisher, Wall Street Journal
– Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO, Denuo/CIO, Publicis Media Group
If you go, please send notes!!
We’ll try this again. Comments haven’t been getting through from my Win/Firefox, so maybe now that I have my Mac back …
The mention of Murdoch and MySpace was timely. An IU law prof, Josh Fairfield, gave a talk on the value (or lack thereof) of end user licensing agreements in virtual spaces where content is created by members of a community. I wondered if you have given any thought to the EULA you will be using for MyColts, and might suggest a trip down to Bloomington to chat with Josh about his ideas on the matter. Inevitably, any boilerplate EULA language is likely to need refining in the future, so a good understanding of the legal and social ramifications of that kind of contract would be worthwhile.