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As has been widely reported, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has acquired Intermix Media, Inc. for $580 million. Intermix Media is the company that controls MySpace, the popular social networking site. (Read the press release Fox buys MySpace reposted over at Boycott-RIAA.com.)
On one level, I offer my congratulations to Tom and the other guys who built up a huge site from scratch and stand to do very, very well as a result of the deal.
But on another level — what the hell? Fox, and all of News Corp, is the canonical example of just about everything that is going wrong with this country. As a news outlet Fox went out of its way to simultaneously capitalize on the lowest common denoninator of tabloid entertainment masquerading as journalism while at the same time acting as the propganda arm of the worst administration in American history. This alone would be enough for me to cancel my own account on MySpace. And when you consider that Fox that thinks our demographic’s online representation is worth half a billion dollars — an investment that wouldn’t be made without a strategy for the monetization of the network — I can only come to the conclusion that other like-minded people will also delete their accounts.
I could go on for pages about the problems with Fox and the dangers inherent in the capitalization of personal data. But instead, I’m just going to go cancel my account. See you elsewhere…
July 20th, 2005 at 9:02 am
I found out about this yesterday, and I’ve been thinking about where I’m going to ‘flee’ to. Friendster is just kinda crappy. The photo thumbnails are too small. The ads masquerade as being targeted. There is one glimmer of hope: my recent del.icio.us links just showed up on my friendster profile. Many of us knew our MySpace days were numbered when we heard the news yesterday, but didn’t know exactly what to do. I would love if there was a better alternative than Friendster, but I think I’m going to follow your lead and erase my MySpace profile.
July 20th, 2005 at 9:10 am
I agree Friendster doesn’t offer all that much. I wrote a bit on social networks before.
Yet I’m in this weird position — given my job I could build a social network any time I choose to. I just haven’t figured out exactly what to do with it. I want something special — not just another “me too” offering. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Or even better, just come work with me and we’ll build it together…
I hope this doesn’t stop your social network search engine project…
July 21st, 2005 at 8:37 am
I think it’s funny that you say this is a weird position. I hated myspace because of the crappy HTML feature they allowed their users to jack up their site, but I had an account for the hell of it. I also have a Friendster account, and they’ve upgraded a hell of a lot and sound like they are going further from the chatter on their discussion boards. So I’d say if you fell gipped about myspace selling out, why not give Friendster another chance?
July 21st, 2005 at 8:47 am
Personally I’m all for Friendster regaining their stride. I think they’ve done a great job over the past few months in revamping the user experience — it is clear that there has been a huge investment in R&D and the improvements are obvious.
What I’m really waiting for, however, is something that blows me away. Of course that isn’t easy — like I said, if it were, I’m in a position where I help make it happen independently. That said, Friendster might do well to court some of the potential MySpace refugees and capture the demographic that is interested in self-promotion (of bands and whatnot) and in sharing media…
It will be fun watching how this all plays out.
July 22nd, 2005 at 9:36 pm
has anyone checked out linkedin.com or yahoo360?
for me, linkedin has actually proven to lead to numerous job possibilities, while yahoo360 (in a year or so) might be pretty sick once they tie all their properties together through the shared perspective of individual yahoo! members. think about the possibilities of shared event calendars, music, etc.
July 22nd, 2005 at 10:06 pm
I like LinkedIn — if anyone out there uses it, please feel free to ping me there about work. And I agree with you, Sean, Yahoo360 could potentially be huge. Yahoo definitely “gets it” these days better than just about any other large corporation — it will be fun watching what they come up with.
July 25th, 2005 at 8:43 pm
Nice banner! Did you make it?
I am also very upset with the Murdoch acquisition of MySpace. Must everything public go corporate? Where will it end!
I am seriously considering dropping MySpace and sticking with Friendster. In the meantime, I will have try outFOXing the marketing man and have some fun with my profile.
July 25th, 2005 at 9:02 pm
Marcelo — I dig your blog. And thank you, I did make the banner. I like having a graphic for each post.
Good luck sticking it to FOX, but I’m betting that they are just happy to keep getting the clicks… Maybe it is better to just silently let them go. Of course, if I were still on MySpace I’d check out what you did.
September 15th, 2005 at 7:08 am
Check of http://www.in2ism.com They have a section called in2-people. Its kinda like my space.
September 22nd, 2005 at 11:19 am
Yeh Matt, I checked out that http://www.in2ism.com site and I like it better than MYspace already. The in2people section is not as advanced as myspace, but I don’t even use mostof the features on myspace anyway! What I like about the in2ism is that their like the grown-up version of Myspace, the in2ism.com site has alot of real cool artices for both men & women.
I think their gonna get big if they continue like this.
NO MORE MYSPACE FOR ME TOO!!