TC50: MySpace CEO DeWolfe Says 95 Percent of Ad Revenues Comes From 9 Countries; Announces New Google Gears Project

Not all countries are created equal when it comes to social networking, at least in terms of how valuable each user is to advertisers. In an onstage interview with Michael Arrington at TC50, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe confirmed this:

Our international strategy is different than our competitors. We look at advertising dollars, and 95% of all advertising revenues come form 9 countries.

In those countries, we have 30% more unique users than our closest competitor in those 9 countries. So that is really our strategy.

He didn’t name all nine countries, but they probably include the U.S., Japan, the UK, Germany, France, and Canada

MySpace is also embracing Google Gears beyond just messaging. DeWolfe announced a new Google Gears project in the works that will let members take their profiles offline. Currently, MySpace uses Google Gears to power its messaging application. A few minutes ago, DeWolfe explained on stage:

In terms of Google Gears, we are mostly using it with messaging. We are allowing you to take it down to your hard drive. Our next project with Google Gears is to do that with profiles. You will be able to archive it in a timeline, or create a scrapbook of all your profiles.

Something tells me we’ll be seeing more Google Gears projects coming out of MySpace.

Other topics covered in the 15-minute interview:

—On MySpace Music, which may be launching as early as next week (DeWolfe would only confirm that it will launch “this month”), Arrington notes that the CEO search for MySpace Music is taking longer than expected. He asked DeWolfe, “Are you prepared to launch without a CEO?”

DeWolfe responded that he and MySpace COO Amit Kapur are currently managing the business, which has been under development for the past four years and has 70 employees. He added:

We didn’t get a placement firm until a few weeks ago. We are launching no matter what this month.

—On his co-founder Lord Flathead’s hacker past, he and Arrington had the following back and forth:

DeWolfe:If you read it on TechCrunch, it must be true. I am not going to speak for Tom, but he has a lot more technical ability than people give him credit for.

Arrington: Was he a hacker in the 1980s?

DeWolfe: He was a technical guy

—On whether DeWolfe is dating Paris Hilton, DeWolfe parried:

I think the audience is more interested in your personal life than mine.

Any other questions?