/Culture/ The MySpace economy
21/12/2006 | Filed under Discover > Culture
Is the global phenomenon that is MySpace simply a smoke-filled common room for millions of teenagers, or a revenue machine that generates millions of bucks for corporate giants? Ian Harris reveals the truth behind the MySpace economy
“$580million for that?” Everybody remembers how they first heard of MySpace. For some, it was when the Arctic Monkeys first graced a Sunday newspaper supplement. For most, it was when news broke that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation paid half a billion dollars for a crudely designed social networking site that few outside teen cliques had ever heard of.
MySpace’s dominance
MySpace didn’t invent social networking, but its anything-goes attitude and roots in the LA music scene soon saw it overtake established rivals Friendster and Facebook. While MySpace isn’t unassailable (Bebo has a larger UK membership), the social networking ship can be said to have set sail. But just because it’s too late to do a ‘me too’ MySpace doesn’t mean that web entrepreneurs can’t profit from the social networking phenomenon. With its 107 million-strong membership growing at a rate of 230,000 a day, MySpace presents lucrative business opportunities – MySpace economy, if you will. Many see MySpace not as a website, but as a platform.
MySpace templates
The most common MySpace cash-in lies in offering free templates to help users overhaul their profile. MySpace gives users enough design rope to hang themselves (so long as they don’t cover the ads). Managers at Friendster would sanitize its profiles. “They had no room for fakesters” says founder Tom Anderson. “If a dog or a city or an idea had a page, they would delete it. People said, I’m going to go to MySpace. I can do what I want there.” But while a lot rides on having a snazzy profile, the intricacies of MySpace’s CSS-based coding system is beyond much of its hard-partying user base. This feeds the popularity of sites such as Pimp MySpace (www.pimpmyspace.org) offering cut-and-paste designs. These sites monetise huge traffic by deploying swathes of camouflaged Google AdSense links and pop-up windows imploring visitors to access more templates in return for a range of ‘free’ trial offers.
Photos
But the so-called ‘MySpace economy’ is more than just banner-farm template sites. There are plenty of start-ups piggybacking the platform by offering widgets and technologies that spread like wildfire though MySpace’s millions of users. RockYou (www.rockyou.com) is a popular tool for turning photographs into smooth, transition-laden slideshows. It’s massively popular on MySpace, where users make use of the service to show off their party pictures. Another site that has risen on the MySpace jetstream is photo-sharing service www.Photobucket.com. www.Flickr.com might attract more Web 2.0 attention, but it’s Photobucket that’s king of the castle, occupying a 43.84 per cent market share compared to Flickr’s 5.95 per cent according to web metrics firm Hitwise. Look at MySpace and it’s not difficult to see why: most people use the site to host photographs. Hitwise reveals that clicks originating from MySpace account for most (56 per cent) of Photobucket’s traffic.
YouTube, spyware & widgets
Another obvious MySpace beneficiary has been YouTube. The ‘broadcast yourself’ service, which shows 100 million videos a day, is thought to be worth between one and two billion dollars. While its success is a result of many factors, much of its popularity can be attributed to MySpace, whose users quickly adopted it as a way of sharing video. Such was the take-up that, for a brief period, MySpace banned YouTube from profiles.
With MySpace’s garish profiles a legendary eyesore, the social networking phenomenon also presents webmasters with plenty of opportunity. The MySpace mania is an additional revenue stream, and for Pearse Street Consulting (myspace.com/myspacedesignbiz), it’s a lucrative ‘add-on’ when pitching for new business.
Another ‘industry’ targeting MySpace is the spyware racket. Adware merchant Zango distributes its technology via MySpace profiles. Affiliates post videos encoded in Zango’s proprietary format and receive a bounty when viewers agree to the pop-up inviting them to install the codec. (Viewers are then subjected to adverts whenever they shop online.)
Cool plug-ins are a more respectable way of selling a few tickets aboard the MySpace gravy train. One such tool is Trackzor (www.trackzor.com), a MySpace ‘tracker’ that lets members track all the visits to their MySpace page. Trackzor provides detailed information on surfers, logging their visits and plotting their location on a Google Map.
MySpace marketing
‘MySpace marketing’ is another cottage industry springing from MySpace’s fertile soil. One reason Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation paid a high price for MySpace was its gargantuan user base – those 100 million users spell a rich source of advertising income, given that young eyeballs are notoriously hard to reach. But marketeers are developing ways of tapping this audience without buying ads: sites such as MySocialMarketing.com have sprung up to sell businesses solutions for mastering MySpace. One trick is to artificially inflate a firm’s popularity by conjuring thousands of ‘friends’ to add instant kudos to its MySpace profile. “We can build your profile’s friend size into the 1000s” offers the site. One way of appearing more popular than you are is to sign up to what has become crudely known as a ‘whore train’. A whore train is a way of gathering fake fiends quickly – you’re given a list of MySpace profiles to add to your friends list in return for being friends with them. Another method of MySpace marketing offered by MySocialMarketing.com sounds familiar: peppering folk’s profiles with spam instead of cheery greetings. “Every comment left is an advert!” screams the site. “By leaving 1,000 publicly viewed comments, your advert has the potential to be seen by an astounding amount”.
MySpace corporate profiles
Big businesses, though, generally skip the subterfuge and go directly to MySpace’s marketing department when they want to reach kids. The site has jumped on the B2B bandwagon itself by branching out into marketing services, as its News Corporation parent looks to recoup the $580million it spent acquiring the site. MySpace’s latest wheeze is selling sanitized profiles to support advertising campaigns. For instance, the character from Crest toothpaste’s US adverts, Miss Irresistable, has a profile boasting 50,050 friends. Brands like Nokia, Honda and Microsoft have their own MySpace hangouts – paying upwards of $100,000 for the privilege. You might wonder why these brands didn’t just register a regular MySpace profile for free. As part of the deal, MySpace weeds out ‘friends’ with questionable ‘off-brand’ names, and allows for more intricate layouts. So, Burger King’s corporate profile (fronted by a gaudy character known as ‘The King’) is peppered with comments like “thanks for the flame-broiled goodness” and “burger king iz tha best”. Any props from the Hamburglar are not welcome here.
Comments
George Levy / 22/12/2006 / 01:02 / http:/www.myspacemastership.com
Interesting article... MySpace is an incredibly powerful platform for people seeking widespread recognition and there are steps one can take to reach thousands of people quickly. A smart marketer and self promoter can do wonders with a free profile and establish a strong brand presence on MySpace at virtually no cost by leveraging all the tools the site provides in the right way.
I have helped artists launch new records, small business owners gain hundreds of new leads and aspiring actors establish a loyal following - the possibilities are endless once you know how to work the system.
Your friend,
His Mastership
George Levy
http://www.myspacemastership.com
Ian / 22/12/2006 / 23:11 / http://www.myspace.com/maycast
Thanks for the advert George! Interesting website... I'll put it in my "look into list". I'm not sure about the shades, crown and castle though, I mean you're not royalty!!
Stii / 28/12/2006 / 11:26
It is an interesting article but I will be honest and say that I despise MySpace. From reading this article it's confirmed my 'behind-the-scenes' speculation of the website. One thing I will say about MySpace is that if you have any piece of music you want to showcase to many, many people, then MySpace is the way to go.
Whether that counts towards other industries I don't know.
Joey / 24/03/2007 / 20:37
There are tons of myspace tracker sites out there, like <a href="http://www.mstracker.net">MySpace tracker</a> is a popular tracker too
Craig Gilman / 04/04/2007 / 14:16 / http://www.myspace.com/waspinagermanhelmet
Myspace, VampireFreaks, Findagoth, Bebo, Wayn... there are so many sites now - What's the next big thing? That's what I want to know!
Mathew Browne / 12/06/2007 / 16:34 / http://www.mbwebdesign.co.uk
I always thought Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of Myspace for such a hefty sum was a risky move, because surely, with teenagers dropping fads the minute they fall out of fashion, there could be a competitor to blow them out of the water, if only as a stepping stone to the next big thing.
Enter Facebook.
Chris / 24/09/2007 / 22:33 / http://www.jv-pc.com
exactly the some thoughts profile’s friend size into the 1000s” offers the site. One way of appearing more popular than you are is to sign up to what has become crudely known as a ‘whore train’. A whore train is a way of gathering fake fiends quickly – you’re given a list of MySpace profiles to add to your friends list in return for being friends with them. Another method of MySpace marketing offered by MySocialMarketing.com sounds familiar: peppering folk’s profiles with spam instead of cheery greetings. “Every comment left is an advert!” screams the site. “By leaving 1,000 publicly viewed comments, your advert has the potential to be seen by an astounding amount
Stanley / 26/09/2007 / 17:51 / http://www.pctechguide.com/
True, there are a lot of gizmos and gimmicks for myspace users - and that's going beyond the tunes and templates - but the crucial problems of monetizing remain. The model is not best suited to making money and in the long run that's what will be its undoing.
Mel / 08/10/2007 / 16:33 / http://www.melburys.co.uk
I'd love to get into marketing with MySpace but will it be worth the effort? For me the downer is the demographics of MySpace users, from all that I've read they're mostly teenagers.
nakrerasay / 25/10/2007 / 14:18 / http://www.bizdevariz.com
Interesting website the possibilities are endless once you know how to work the system
Colin / 22/11/2007 / 03:44 / http://www.naturallygreen.co.uk
A very informative post. As George stated 'A smart marketer and self promoter can do wonders with a free profile and establish a strong brand presence on MySpace at virtually no cost by leveraging all the tools the site provides in the right way.' I know of several companies using myspace for the free instant traffic it provides and several musician friends who have achieved a fanbase they could only dream of without social networking sites such as this. The question is, how long before a new networking site wipes myspace off the web!?
frank / 23/01/2008 / 07:05 / http://cityinternet.com
The key to keeping this social networking momentum is innovation, which will bring new incentives
in the form of interactive marketing platforms, where users get to play simple opt-in game in the etail store for the corporate sposnsors to hand over discounts and giveaways.
Christine / 02/02/2008 / 22:09
Thanks for that thought-provoking article. I wish I knew a few years back how popular Myspace would have been. So many different ways to profit from it.
The Best,
Christine
http://www.momjobs.com
Dev Basu / 03/02/2008 / 00:32 / http://www.devbasu.com
I don't think MySpace marketing works the same way it used to are is as profitable. I suppose Facebook is where all the prospects are these days!
Dave King / 03/02/2008 / 10:28 / http://www.letmeadvise.com
Very interesting and well written article. The MySpace economy should get even more interesting and profitable when they open it up to the public developers (like Facebook has). I believe they are planning to do this within the next month or so.
Anyways, thanks for an interesting read!
-Dave
http://letmeadvise.com
Joel Chue / 04/02/2008 / 02:44 / http://www.myselfhypnosis.net/
I don't usually do marketing on MySpace. They will bound to remove any sorts of advertising sooner or later. Not worth the effort though.
T.M. Harris / 04/02/2008 / 19:13 / http://www.ebayprofitloophole.com
If you want my opinion, Myspace has become too saturated with internet marketers trying to dominate them for profit. And the sad fact is...most simply come on there showing the image of the marketer. People use social networks for socializing...not for spending money on whatever every marketer is telling them to buy.
So, unless internet marketers are willing to 'dumb down' their image and appear just like everyone else who uses these platforms for friends and socializing...then the myspace economy SUCKS!
Vijay / 05/02/2008 / 15:37 / http://www.contestradar.com
Frankly speaking, Social Networking is growing in popularity by the day, even if not in reputation.. But the opps offered by it are endless
Alfred / 05/02/2008 / 15:38 / http://useandthrow.com
Marketing on social networking platforms is certainly a profitable proposition considering the large user base and also the fact that they are dominated by teens, who are more responsive to ads and affiliate marketing strategies
Jenny / 14/02/2008 / 19:34 / http://coachhandbagoutlet.wikidot.com
Facebook is so much better than MySpace. MySpace is so ugly and chaotic!
Simon / 05/06/2008 / 11:42 / http://www.indigo-herbs.co.uk
Well I am learning somthing every day.
Social Networking, is really the way forward
chipster / 16/06/2008 / 22:04
I imagine the emperor STILL wears no clothes.... myspace is a wonderful marketing tool but a remarkably poor SALES tool. Most musicians think that by putting their songs on the widget that this will drive CD or mp3 sales. Yeh, right. Musicians dont buy from musicians my friends, and most other 'non musicians' are teens who rip off music anyway. Using myspace to show validation is great. Just don't expect myspacers to be a ready and built in customer base. They got it (myspace)for free and that's what they are willing to spend...
