Comments on: Charting MySpace From Hot To Not http://paidcontent.org/2011/01/12/419-charting-myspace-from-hot-to-not/ The economics of digital content Sun, 19 May 2013 12:06:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: NURREDIN http://paidcontent.org/2011/01/12/419-charting-myspace-from-hot-to-not/#comment-81659 Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:09:53 +0000 http://paidcontent.wp.gostage.it/2011/01/12/419-charting-myspace-from-hot-to-not/#comment-81659 The same thing is going to happen to Facebook if they go public. Myspace tried to turn a profit, and the people that go on these “Social” websites aren’t there to buy anything, they’re there to socialize with friends. Myspace was so full of ads on every page you jumped to that people got tired of being bombarded with ads, and switched to Facebook. Facebook keeps getting private money to stay afloat . If every profile only costs $1.00 a year to maintain, they’re spending $600 MILLION a year just for server space! Sooner or later, the advertisers will realize people aren’t there to make any purchases, and will abandon Facebook just like they did Myspace. If Facebook does have an IPO, then they will have to answer to shareholders for profits or the lack thereof. You have to remember Facebook and Myspace have the same revenue model as newspapers: ADVERTISING. If people don’t buy what’s advertised, the advertisers will stop buying space. Myspace and Facebook are no different than the newspapers, except they keep people up to date on a personal level instead of a local or national level. The question is can these type of websites stay afloat depending only on advertising revenue?

]]> By: Chris Bagley http://paidcontent.org/2011/01/12/419-charting-myspace-from-hot-to-not/#comment-81658 Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:07:10 +0000 http://paidcontent.wp.gostage.it/2011/01/12/419-charting-myspace-from-hot-to-not/#comment-81658 Very interesting.

I wonder if MySpace will make it as a music/entertainment site. If I had to guess, I’d say “yes, it will.”

The lesson I take from MySpace’s decline is that you have to carve out a distinct niche and dominate that niche. Facebook vanquished MySpace because Facebook and (the old) MySpace were both social-networking platforms for friendships, and Facebook was better at that. But the new MySpace, Twitter, FourSquare, ShopSocial.ly, Reddit and GoGoBot (a social-networking site for travelers) all have niches, so I think they’ll continue to thrive mutually with Facebook.

For a counterexample, look at Facebook Places. It doesn’t seem to have hurt FourSquare, and I think that’s because Facebook was moving out of its own niche and into a niche that FourSquare more-or-less dominates.

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