MySpace Heads Downhill, Whilst S&S Seek A Tweens Social Solution

Remember a social networking site called My Space? It transformed Lily Allen from a bedroom performer into a star and the Arctic Monkeys from an obscure Sheffield band into headliners. It once had the market share of social networks and was the place to socialise, but today it is shrinking, looks like yesterday’s news and is no longer the hip and the place to be seen.

MySpace have already tried to refocus the service on music, but perhaps music alone and a ‘music destination’ is just not enough.

Analysts ComScore claim that MySpace lost more than 10 million unique users worldwide between January and February this year, reducing the number of users from 73 million down to 63 million. Worse still is the year on year drop which equates to some 50 million. Some may say these figures are very respectable and they would be if the trend was in the ascent but in the decline they could so begin to freefall.

MySpace has already announced plans to cut some 500 of its workforce and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp 2005 purchase is starting to turn into a dog and some would now value it at around just 15% of the £330 it cost.

Facebook and YouTube have established themselves as the social hotspots today with many now falling by the wayside. MySpace even faces further competition from streaming services and blurring of media MySpace looks destined to become either very niche or quickly forgotten part of News International.

Meanwhile there are plenty of social wanabees and last week Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing has launched an online interactive book club for tweens on Everloop, a recently launched social media platform for tweens. Simon & Schuster had launched the club to connect tweens with favourite books and authors and will begin with "Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life," by Rachel Renee Russell and "SPHDZ Book (hash)1!," by Jon Scieszka. Book club members will be able to engage in online discussions with authors.

Connecting young readers and authors is hard as sites like Facebook are very conscious of the dangers of social networking and bans a reported 20,000 children a day from using the service. So along comes Everloop to fill the gap between the ages of 8 and 13 and ties every child to an adult but just because the adults like it doesn’t mean its hip to the kids and it still has to police this ultra sensitive market? Once a child is no longer a tween then by its own rules it moves on and probably to Facebook. If Everloop succeeded it could be huge, if it fails it goes the way of Bebo, AOL and others who have been down this path.

The problem for publishers is that they are struggling to build up a network and build a service. When the figures don’t meet expectation they then have to determine whether its down to them, or the service.

MySpace Going One Way And It's ....

MySpace was the social network and then came along Facebook. Some would suggest Murdoch bought the wrong one, others that he bought the right one and that is why today its in different position.

It looks like MySpace has finally realised that it has lost the battle with Facebook and now seeks to reposition and redesign itself from the world's largest general-purpose social network to one focused at musicians and music lovers.

Artists with flare and some design can visually convey their personalities more on MySpace than through Facebook's corporate colour and presentation and as long as the artist is there the fans will be there too. Artists will get three choices of design; the old- MySpace design, a magazine-like format, or a video format with mobile versions to follow later this year.

Meanwhile, Facebook still has its growing user community which in true social trems creates even greter growth. So the question is whether musicians want to live in a ring fenced social network or project themselves to a bigger community. If the later then MySpace is going only one way and that isn’t up.

The interesting question is what MySpace will do with all the user information from those who drop of their new site?

Social Networks Grow Up

What do we really know about the use of the technology we now take for granted and part of everyday life. Who uses Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, SMS, Blogs and what drives their usage?

An interesting article in the New Your Times raises many questions about the user demographics and use of this new communication world.

New technology often is first adopted by the young and then permeates to the older generations and we assume the young drive adoption of technology. According to comScore, today’s new ‘must do’ service Twitter, has a demographic that consists of only 11% of its users being teenagers. It appears that Twitter may have buck the trend. We have already reported on Ivy Bean who twitters and is 103!

What is becoming evident is that the older generations that are driving the real growth of social networks today. Today teenagers only account for 14% of MySpace and 9% of Facebook and we doubt very many use Linkedin. Forrester Research have issued a report that claims that the use of social networks by people aged 35 to 54 grew 60% in the last year.

So we have to now understand what people use these sites for and how and what they communicate.

Is the drive in older users merely a ‘catch up’ and a need to be hip, or is it driven by wider social aspects such as the need to belong to communities, find kindred spirits and express views? Teenagers tend to be more social and live in school and social communities, often with a wide range of friends and communicate on a one to one basis. However, this is often not the case of older generations who now have the opportunity to connect with others they may have never met otherwise.

One would assume that the older generations would be more concerned about privacy and having their feelings, thoughts openly available to what some may say are total strangers, but a look at many members pages shows a willingness to share and express.

If social networking services are to be part of the publishing marketing mix these demographics and social needs need to be understood and not assumed. What will drive the older audience? What is the key to engage with them? Does it require a tight vertical perspective or interest which will probably demand more than just books, or can it survive on a generalist pitch and book alone? We see the re-emergence of the social network sites BookRabbit and Sellstudentsstuff.com and we ask what is different this time?

Friends Reunited on the Block Again

We all look and wonder at the lustre of social networking sites. One minute they are the vision of a student or wanabee millionaire, the next they are attracting significant traffic and wild market valuations. However for every success there are hundreds of failures and success does not always mean that they are sustainable.

Look at MySpace with its starlets, Ms Allen and the Artic Monkeys. Once the ruler of the social sites, it now has to sit below Facebook. We once thought Sellstudentbooks.com was going to make it but alas not. We often have joined these sites and once the initial momentum is over, realised that they often aren’t the universe they claim, are hard work to maintain and left them as quickly.

Now what we would regard as the granddaddy of them all, Friends Reunited looks like it is going further down the slippery pole, with widely reported rumours that ITV may sell it for just £15 million. In December 2005 ITV paid £175 million for the site! However, ITV still reported a £18 million contribution from Friends Reunited in 2008, though this was down from £22 million in 2007. So a sale may earn out quickly if the friends stay reunited.

Watch TV and MySpace Together

MySpace has developed the Widget Channel, which enables users to keep abreast of MySpace's social-networking activity, such as e-mail and photo browsing while watching TV. The widget sits at the bottom of the TV screen and is set of development tools developed jointly with Intel and Yahoo. The aim of the Widget Channel is to develop mini-applications that complement TV viewing with Internet information.
Users can receive instant updates of friends' activities directly on their TV screen and will also let them view their friends' profiles.

The MySpace Widget will be available on Internet-connected consumer electronics, such as set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and TVs and are designed to work with Intel's Intel Media Processor CE3100 system-on-a-chip platform for consumer electronics devices.

NewsSpace Democratisation

HarperCollins and MySpace are both part of the Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp empire. It therefore not surprising to read, that MySpace is getting into the book business and HarperCollins into the social community space. HarperCollins has a MySpace presence for some time has recently announced its Authonomy.com aspiring author community space.

MySpace, are now to collaborate with a children's imprint of HarperCollins on an environmental handbook planned for April 22, Earth Day. "MySpace/Our Planet: Change is Possible," will be written by freelance journalist Jeca Taudte and is rumoured to be about 160 pages and cost about $12.95 with a planned first printing of 200,000.The book will feature ideas from MySpace users, who can post environmental tips on http://www.myspace.com/ourplanet. Following the trend towards the democratisation of literature that we have featured heavily on in recent blogs, MySpace contributors who end up in the book will not be paid, but will be credited by their usernames and geographic locations.

The combination sounds a real winner, social community, environmental issues, children’s focus, two major promotion channels and free contributions from motivated individuals. Now who will do a deal with Facebook or Bebo?

Social Networks Grow

Social network sites are clearly the in thing and are developing in many ways. Today we read that News Corporation is set to launch a mobile phone version of MySpace. The service will be advert supported free and enable users to transfer messages, comments and update blogs.

Separately, in that other social world of Facebook we hear of potential investors ready to table $300 to $500milion for just 5% of the company! That will give the company a valuation of potentially around $10 billion! Last September, Yahoo offered $900 million in order to acquire Facebook. An offer rejected by Mark Zuckerberg,(pictured) its 23-year-old chief executive Zuckerburg. Today Facebook has more than 40 million members, up from 9 million last year.

This time the investors are no other than Microsoft and Google. Facebook’s valuation could go even higher if the two rivals create a competitive bidding war. It is also rumoured that Facebook is seeking a minimum valuation of $10 billion but it go as high as $13 billion. Not bad for a company which Richard Greenfield, a Pali Research analyst, earlier this year, estimated generated revenues between $60 million to $96 million, with no real profit. Much of that revenue comes from a year-old advertising relationship with Microsoft.

YouTube versus MySpace, Place your bets

Video wars again but not betamax versus VHS but Google’s YouTube versus Murdoch’s MySpace.

MySpace have taken the gloves off and recognised the huge market and video demand in the social space. YouTube, dominants the online video space and its market share continues to grow. A recent Hitwise report stes that their share has grown 70 percent since January, compared to MySpace Video's 13 percent growth in the same time period. YouTube's current market share is 60% compared to MySpace Videos' 16%.

MySpaceTV will be an upgrade to the video site it launched two years ago, and will showcase premium content like the Sony Minisodes, which debuted on MySpace last week. These feature short clips of classic TV shows, alongside user-generated content and other sophisticated Internet video offerings. MySpace has announced a handful of deals with the usual content partners, including National Geographic, The New York Times, Reuters, Fox's IGN Entertainment, Animation Show and the Daily Reel. It will not only be open to Internet users who do not have an account on the social networking site, but MySpace users will be able to create their own TV pages by uploading videos to the site.

Intrestingly, when YouTube first launched, MySpace was its largest source of traffic, and that it continues to be a large driver. With the advent of TV services such as Joost and iPlayer it is going to be a crowded space with many vying from the same eyes. What is clear is that the video, film and TV worlds are changing.

Facebook Leaps Forth

At a time when all marketing eyes are either watching the move by the search engines into traditional advertising space or experimenting with social networks comes the latest figures on the later’s performance. It appears that not just the Labour party’s hopeful Deputy Leaders are using this channel.

According to a Hitwise report, MySpace still accounts for roughly 79% of social networking traffic. However, since the September 2006, Facebook has experienced a traffic increase of 106%! We must however note that they opened up their collegiate service in this time to all Internet users, so the increase may just be a blip.

Year over year growth is signioficant with Facebook 126% traffic increase and Bebo.com 184%. Again these figures look astounding but must be viewed in terms of their positions as relative new startups. The I nteresting insight is that MySpace accounts for roughly 24% of the traffic that hits sites such as Bebo, Facebook and Imeem. So social networkers are not satisfied with using only one platform and users appear to join all the new spaces as a way to meet even more people.

The message to online marketers is that the sector is growing and that there appears to be a clear need for users to maximise their reach to their ‘friends’. It will be interestingtoi see if this is that same with respect to other growing site Second Life.

MySpace or MurdochSpace

MySpace, which is owned by the News Corporation and is the Internet’s largest social network, has been introducing limits on the software tools that its users can embed in their pages. The end game is to monopolise the commercial capitalisation of its 90 monthly visits and stop others delivering advertising or enabling transactions.
Some would argue, this then becomes MurdochSpace and is no longer MySpace.

MySpace says that it will block all third-party software — also called widgets — when they lend themselves to violations of its terms of service, like the spread of pornography or copyrighted material. But it also now objects to software that enables users to sell or advertise without authorization, or without entering into a direct partnership with M******Space.

The corporates that bought up these highly active new social space didn’t do it to spread love, peace and social understanding they did it to generate money. Google will pay MySpace at least $900 million over the next three years to serve ads to the site’s users. Others have lined up for a slice of the lucrative audience.

In the past, MySpace failed to block companies like YouTube that began successful businesses from MySpace’s pages. The question of whether YouTube would have made it without MySpace is immaterial now but as the doors close and M******Space is spawned it is clear that new social spaces will have to fight for their own space and audience.

More import is the realisation that previous attempts others have made to try to dictate people’s Internet experience has ended failing. Today the fickle are only one click away from the next destination.