MySpace, The 27.4 Billion Pound Gorilla

June 13th, 2006 at 12:36 am

Let’s qualify that sixth place ranking. They have a 0.6% share of the US search market which is way, way behind 5th place Ask with a 5.8% share and not even registering with Google’s 43.1% share. Well, they’ll catch up. Yeah, maybe. Then again, with all those pages view, this is the best they can do with search activity already? And that search is powered by Yahoo, so though MySpace isn’t a Yahoo site, Yahoo certainly gets its listings in front of this small percentage of searchers.

June 13th, 2006 at 12:53 am

2 interesting recent article about the business side of mySpace

Ad Age: 1 million $ per day for the homepage see http://adage.com/mediaworks/ar....._id=109706

CNN: MySpace to bring about 350 millions dollars in revenue this year http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/0...../mediabiz/

The price paid last year for this acquisition by R murdoch starts to make sense

June 13th, 2006 at 3:08 am

i agree with nicole. myspace generates a whole lot of reloads and page impressions on purpose. pageviews say nothing. what actually counts is maybe the relation of PV/UV ,but hey most of stats are wrong and nobody really knows how to read stuff that compares data that just cannot be compared. just think about how to count rss subscriptions (of which most are certainly not read at all, at least not by humans) or how would you count ajax loaded content. is that a PI or not? it could come down to data-volume/unique-visitor or time/visit , which both cant work out in the end, you know it.

June 13th, 2006 at 5:33 am

As someone who does, in fact, have a web page on MySpace but rarely visits the site, I would like to make several observations about the reason for its ‘popularity.’

1.)As Nicole and Kosmar mentioned above, the site’s crapola layout is no mistake. To do anything on the site at all, one must navigate through multiple pages. At first, I believed that it was just a case of really poor website design. When Rupert Murdoch swept in and purchased the site, I thought ‘OK, now we’ll see some changes.” Here we are, many months later and no site redesign. Or rather, designed just the way it was intended.

2.) Once someone sets up a page on Myspace, where do you think they go after they’ve added their friends? Why, the search feature inside Myspace, of course. Many people want to see if there are others they know on the site. Unfortunately for the users, but fortunately for the page view count, the search engine inside of Myspace is useless and results in only more page views. I would guess that the average person will do 3-5 page views per person searched, and most likely, they still won’t get any results. How many people will someone search for? Everybody they know. AND if they do get results, miracle of miracles, they’ll have an average of 30 or so pages of picture galleries to search through. Oh, the joy of the page view count.

3.) As David mentions, add in tons of profiles created by porncams, SPAM companies and future stars of Dateline’s “Hunt for Predators” segment, and you’ve got loads more ‘users’ and ‘popularity.’

4.) There are many people I know who went in to Myspace created a profile but then afterwards decided they didn’t want their personal info to be so out in the open on the web. However, as many MySpace ‘fans’ have found, it is near impossible to delete a profile, in fact, the only surefire way to get your account deleted is to upload loads of porn pics to it and wait for them to kick you out. Most people aren’t willing to go that far, so their profile lives on forever.

5.) Finally, yes, they have a lot of teenagers and college kids who love the site, actual valid page views and users, but if there is one constant about teenagers and college kids, its that their tastes change. What are they attracted to? Anything better, quicker, easier, like most of us. I think that it will only take one company to market their site as a better, faster, and easier to use Myspace, and you will see a mass exodus. Guaranteed. So far there are a lot of copycat sites that fit the bill, but I really don’t see any true marketing effort from any of them. Someone needs to start to advertise and mention that they are ‘just like Myspace.’ That’s all it will take. It won’t be around forever. Remember, Friendster was once popular, too.

June 13th, 2006 at 5:38 am

Kosmar, I see your point, but I must disagree in way; page views are very important for ad companies - branding, getting someone to click, these things are increased when there are many page views. Page reloads count! The trick is, myspace has is set in a way that users do not mind the new pages and new ads to get to the content they are looking for, or to add content to thier pages that they like. Sites like godaddy that force you into ad page after ad page are frustrating, and make many users consider using another, easier to use service, yet myspace gets these page views with anticipation of more.

David, you make a good point. My first impression when reading this post was “at 240,000 new users a day, how long before there are no more users to sign up”, and of course I thought about how many profiles are made just for spam and ads… of course it is not in myspace’s best interest to get rid of these profiles, the numbers make them look good, get them press, and ad revenue dollars.

The numbers are impressive, but what’s more impressive to me is how many people I know that are using it on a regular basis. Many people do just use myspace on the internet, and do not go anywhere else.. that creates another whole internet user sub group who are not exposed to anything else online…

June 13th, 2006 at 6:00 am

The key stat missing here is time spent on the site. At a recent Ad Tech conference in SF, MySpace’s marketing director said their users were spending an average of 45 minutes per session, an amazing stat if true. If you count total user time spent on the site, MySpace may be the busiest site on the web. A typical Google user, for example, does 1.5 searchs per day and may spend a few minutes on each.
MySpace is struggling to find an efficient way to monetize all that eyeball time, however their users are very averse to ads. In spite of that the site is throwing off revenues of something like 10-15 million per month so I suspect Rupert is a happy camper.

June 13th, 2006 at 6:11 am

Oops, I posted the same link twice (reach). Click on the “page views” tab.

June 13th, 2006 at 7:01 am

MySpace’s reluctance or inability to let users use their own data is going to be their achille’s heel. I have a profile there out of necessity only, and I hate visiting it. Beyond the terrible design and frustration in trying to use the thing, however, I can’t even use any data I input there anywhere else. They don’t provide RSS feeds, you have to join to interact with anybody, and I even have to go to the site itself when I get a message from somebody (worse yet it’s basically just an email telling me I have a message–I consider it spam). They’re creating a huge data silo.

June 13th, 2006 at 7:57 am

My take of MySpace… and I am a daily user.

1. The median quality of people on the site is… let’s just say, ‘not the sort major brand advertisers really want’. It has truly become the new “mall hangout” for the youth generation. But those mall rats didn’t buy much more than a Coke and pretzel at the mall 10 years ago. I’m afraid MySpace advertisers will soon discover the same thing.

2. The number of bogus and novelty profiles is astounding if you take the time to look. I’d guess about 20%

3. College students (4-year universities) largely do not use the site. Facebook owns them. MySpace does have many commumity college users however. But again, not the cream of the crop consumer group.

4. Advertising will not work on the site because it is too easy for frequent users to navigate right past the main page (after signing-in) without even glancing at the most expensive ads. The rest of the ads, for the most part, are garbage 10¢ CPM, catch the monkey for a free iPod ads.

5. Ads work when people are looking for them in a related context. Just ask Google MySpace users are not in the “consumer context” while on the site. Would you like someone sticking a flyer on your table, while you’re out eating dinner with your girlfriend?

MySpace is much like wind-power. It’s there, it’s everywhere, it’s all-powerful. But we don’t know how to efficiently monetize it.

June 13th, 2006 at 8:34 am

One important point about MySpace is missing here. It is the best vehicle to create discovery, buzz, and sales around a music artist. It is launching bands that are selling millions of CD’s. The Arctic Monkey’s success is a great case study. Their debut was the fastest selling debut OF ALL TIME! They generated buzz by making their music available for free prior to the release and generating viral buzz nowhere moreso then at MySpace. Gnarls Barkley is another example.

Look at the value MTV was able to build through music. MySpace has more power and reach to these kids today then MTV has ever had.

June 13th, 2006 at 9:09 am

The number of page views generated by each unique visitor is stunning - clearly these users are very, very passionate about the site.

Either that or they are just very passionate about getting pages to load.

June 13th, 2006 at 10:03 am

It’s very telling that discussions of MySpace — including in News Corp’s annual report — are always about page views and users and never about dollars and cents.

June 13th, 2006 at 11:15 am

Wait until they begin delivering incentivized local search right onto each profile page. Right now they lack the ability to geo-contextualize (did I just make that up?), but once they are able to send Starbucks coffee coupons to members that drink coffee or nicotine patch suppliers to smokers, local plumber ads to someone who just posted they have a leaking shower head you will then see the monetization revenues.
The potential to direct ads to members who post every detail of their lives is enormous, holy grail type stuff.

June 13th, 2006 at 12:52 pm

My only question about MySpace users is: do they buy? They have a ton of traffic, but it’s not a particularly business oriented crowd.

I’m sure if they customize marketing plans for specific companies, they can increase their revenue even more rapidly then before.

June 13th, 2006 at 1:35 pm

Sure they buy. And maybe more importantly the demo embraces ads in general. For them it’s cool if Ludacris is rapping for Sprite. Not exactly the Neil Young “I aint singin for Pepsi” generation here. They are also highly susceptible to brand marketing. In fact there is Yahoo research on this that was delivered at SES NYC that shows this demo uses search for brand awareness.

June 13th, 2006 at 2:39 pm

@ Adversee

I agreed with everything yo usaid except this:

5.) Finally, yes, they have a lot of teenagers and college kids who love the site, actual valid page views and users, but if there is one constant about teenagers and college kids, its that their tastes change. What are they attracted to? Anything better, quicker, easier, like most of us. I think that it will only take one company to market their site as a better, faster, and easier to use Myspace, and you will see a mass exodus. Guaranteed. So far there are a lot of copycat sites that fit the bill, but I really don’t see any true marketing effort from any of them. Someone needs to start to advertise and mention that they are ‘just like Myspace.’ That’s all it will take. It won’t be around forever. Remember, Friendster was once popular, too.

—- I really can’t see myspace going away anytime soon,
the single most important reason I use it is not because of
all the cool features… tagworld.com and many others have
WAY cooler features already and in my opinion have a hard
road ahead of them to really succeed.

it’s simply because EVERYONE and i mean EVERYONE my age
(im 21) uses MySpace.

I started using it because i thought i’d meet hot chicks
and what not but then quickly realized it’s more about
writing to people I already know.

All my friends who’ve moved away write me on it - and
that’s why I can’t see myself using any other “general”
social network site… UNLESS, some how - someone convicned
ALL of them to just “Switch”.

But there is MAJOR loyalty to myspace right now it’s
incredible … and - facebook - doesn’t even let jokers
like me who’ve dropped out of college use their site.

I guess that’s their strong point and their weak point
in their marketing - but when all my friends who graduate
from college this year realize… everyone else is using myspace
and now facebook is for kids younger then them…

I bet they’ll switch to myspace as well because, well,
all their friends are on it.

not because tagworld has a cooler interface to quickly
optimzie your home page 10x faster then myspace or because
they have cooler lay out or because tagworld has a sweet
play list feature to put on your site and automated scripts
to rotate pictures and a million goodies… im now adding to
my new soicla network site im building…

In my opinion - the single most important part of launching
a social network site - is to get the “Cool’ people in your
market using the site.

Like, with myspace - as far as I understand - they’re cool
people started out being Band’s who didn’t know how to
make a website and quickly found out mypsace was an easy
way to have a website up and interact with their fans.

Fans started joining so they could interact with their lovely
rock stars - and then that’s how it began to spread.

It’s going to take some HUGE advertising bucks and alot
of “COOL” people being hired to endorse and use another
social network site to take away myspace’s huge huge huge
presense in this market place.

These KID’s I know who are active users LOVE myspace
and eat and breathe and sleep myspace they check it out
10x a day… and spend hours writing all their friends on it.

With that said… http://www.tagworld.com isn’t doing too shabby
with a few million people now - but man, what a task, to
compete with a fast growing, super branded, extremely well
funded - myspace.

June 13th, 2006 at 6:33 pm

How has MySpace grown so quickly?

June 13th, 2006 at 11:32 pm

sometimes it seems i’m not impressed by much anymore, but 240,000 new users/day?? holy *$*%. of course, fully half of that is spam/sex nonsense.

it also goes to show that i know zero about teens. i hate that site. i don’t see how anyone, teen or not, could like it. i’m completely out of touch with what teens dig. completely.

i guess that must be interesting to someone? hey, let’s like, figure out what teens can waste their time on, or something.

it’s a paycheck, i guess.

must suck, being in a rock band, and then figuring out that your target market is 13-17 year-olds. blah. unless, of course, you’re a 13-17 year-old in a rock band. what’s it like to be 30+ and figuring out the wants are and creating false needs for teenagers? i.e., what’s it like to be a myspace manager?

madison avenue. public relations. hill & knowlton. rendon group. britney spears. myspace. american idol. packaged politicians.

i always thought silicon valley could be about more than just creating more and hungrier consumers. i’ll hold out hope. In the words of Brother Cornel, ‘no optimism here’, but ‘one must be a prisoner of hope’.

July 3rd, 2006 at 6:06 pm

Myspace is defiitely a huge help for marketing and promotion.
http://www.myspace.com/trufam

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