Week 4 - Corporate Interest and Advertising

In July of 2005, Rupert Murdoc’s News Corp. bought Myspace for US$580 million (BBC News, 2007). This was one of the first big Internet company buyouts following the “dot com crash” (Investopedia, 2006). It was followed by the likes of Google buying Youtube (The Associated Press, 2006) and more recently Microsoft buying a stake in Facebook (BBC News,2007[2]).

In anyone’s language, $580 million is a lot of money to pay for a website. But Myspace isn’t really any old website; statistics reveal the site gets more than 1 billion views per day (Guthrie, 2006).

With that many people visiting the same place every day, Mysapce.com is very lush ground for advertising, and the number one reason for Murdoc’s buyout. He claims that the website is now worth 10 times what he paid for it in 2005. (Meyer, 2006)

And adverting sure is prevalent on Myspace. With banner ads, “Myspace music exclusives", “Myspace specials”, and sponsored links, it’s down right impossible to escape without resorting to installing ad-blocking software into your browser, which I recently have done.

I have found that this form of advertising has been one of the most annoying and frustrating aspects of my interaction with Myspace. Brightly coloured, moving and noisy Flash-based ads seem to be on every page, and are very distracting. Before installing ad-blocking software, I found I would quickly tire of accidentally rolling over an ad and having it scream catchphrases at me. It brought down my entire experience.

The most annoying thing is that Internet based advertising doesn’t have to be done in this form. I find Google’s text-based advertisements remarkably more tasteful and appealing. (http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/Google-revs-up-profits-as-advertising-revenues-soar/2007/10/19/1192301041298.html). The noise and movement of Myspace’s Flash ads may be more eye-catching, but they work against themselves – I don’t want whatever’s being sold if it’s being sold like that!

There is another form of advertising on Myspace that doesn’t directly profit Murdoc’s News Corp; profiles set up as advertising are becoming more common. This method is called “Viral marketing” (marketingterms.com, 2007), where companies set up profiles for their brand which are added as “Friends” by Myspace users. The hope is that the viral profile will continue to be added as “Friends” through social networks, like something would be passed around by “word of mouth” outside of the digital world. I recently set up a profile with this intent for one of my friend’s businesses, http://www.myspace.com/elohimdesigns.

Another similar method is to create faux-personal profiles of people using or engaging with the product or service being advertised. Lingerie brand Elle McPherson Intimates has done this reasonably successfully with it’s (Gordon-MacIntosh, 2007).

Both viral methods are cheap and effective marketing, and is being seen more commonly around Myspace. Movies, events, and brands – all have their own profiles, and what brand profiles you have listed as friends can often be read by other users as an indicator of personality.

References & Quoted Links

• BBC News. (2005). News Corp in $580m internet buy. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4695495.stm. Last accessed 27 October 2007.

• BBC News. (2007). Microsoft buys stake in Facebook. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7061042.stm. Last accessed 27 October 2007.
  
  
• Gordon-MacIntosh, J. (2007). Elle McPherson Campaign. Available: http://t4w.blogs.com/spinningaround/2007/08/elle-mcpherson-.html. Last accessed 27 October 2007.

• Guthrie, S. (2006). Handling 1.5 Billion Page Views Per Day Using ASP.NET 2.0. Available: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/03/25/441074.aspx. Last accessed 27 October 2007.
  
  
• Investopedia. (2006). Crashes: The Dotcom Crash. Available: http://www.investopedia.com/features/crashes/crashes8.asp. Last accessed 2 November 2007.
  
  
• marketingterms.com. (2007). Viral Marketing. Available: http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/viral_marketing/. Last accessed 27 October 2007.
  
  
• Meyer, A. (2006). News Corp: MySpace Worth $6 Billion. Available: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/15/news-corp-myspace-worth-6-billion/. Last accessed 27 October 2007.

• Sydney Morning Herald. (2007). Google revs up profits as advertising revenues soar.27 October 2007. Available: http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/Google-revs-up-profits-as-advertising-revenues-soar/2007/10/19/1192301041298.html. Last accessed

• The Associated Press. (2006). Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion. Available: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15196982/. Last accessed 27 October 2007.

• http://www.myspace.com/elohimdesigns

• http://www.myspace.com/intimatedrummergirl