Three years ago today, Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace and its parent company Intermix for $580 million. That turned out to be money well spent. The last time we ran the numbers, we figured that MySpace alone is worth between $3 billion and $20 billion, depending on how much you value each user. Fox Interactive Media (which is mostly MySpace) accounted for about $850 million in revenues last fiscal year (which ended in June), and is projected to hit $1 billion next year.
It was supposed to hit $1 billion this year, but never mind. Unlike other social networks, MySpace is actually making a profit. The company now employs 1,600 people worldwide, compared to 150 in October, 2005—more than a tenfold increase.
The social network has grown as well. MySpace now has 73 million unique visitors a month in the U.S., according to comScore, compared to 24 million three years ago. (Facebook has 41 million). That means MySpace reaches about 40 percent of the online population, compared to 14 percent three years ago. Those visitors, on average, spend 263 minutes a month each on the site, versus 83 minutes in 2005.
MySpace has definitely evolved since 2005. Just this year it has made major strides in opening up its platform to developers, launching MySpace Music, and pushing new forms of social advertising.
The question is whether rival Facebook can catch up to MySpace in the U.S. (it has already surpassed it worldwide), or whether the two will co-exist and diverge, with MySpace being more music- and media-oreinted and Facebook continuing on its path towards becoming the platform for social software. Of course, MySpace would also like to play that role.
Three years from now, which one will be worth more? And will Rupert Murdoch still be smiling?
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a steal of a buy. i dont know why they were in such a rush to sell. cnet sold for over 1 billion and imho myspace is a much bigger site.
This is one of the best tech buys ever.
im just waiting for locator man’s comment, what u got? myspacelocator.com
cmon on my the edge of my seat
or socialnetworklocator.com
I dont know whats funnier in their posts, the ****locator.com ending or the BS before that.
Im waiting for you mediocrelocator.com
howdy friends, neighbors and fellow phantom haters. :). thank you for the introduction.
This is the day when Myspace.com was adopted by one of the most powerful media conglomerates on the planet. Ohhhh…the power of adoption. It wasn’t like they were adopted by a family on a fixed income. I remember the day vividly. How much value did the domain name have to due with its success. If you ask me it was the first time a company went mainstream with a “personalized natural language location based domain name.” Why did every company and there mother add the prefix “my” to there business name? myAOl, myFox, myYahoo.
The power of “MY” may be the most unrecoginzed, most powerful, most personalized untapped strategic natural language resource on the internet.
MySpace.com is a domain name that spoke for itself. Personalized Natural Language Location. The domain name clearly shows signs as the anchor and catylst to the whole “my” space (location) phenomenom. Ross called it a genie in a bottle.
Question:
Will myspace ever be a become or be considered a serious business channel? a place where people go to build a business or conduct it. appears people go to myspace to have fun .
I would personally like to thank myspace for inspiring the masses and forvever altering the face of the internet. And for inspiring me to push my platform to new levels. As we all share in this “MY”phenomenom together. Life is Good!
ExperienceLocator.com - there is no substitute!
Locator, I for one, question your skills!
mysql
Mr Locator,
I am unable to understand what exactly you arepto? Maybe I am not too regular on reading all the comments and I missed something. Why all the locator domain names and why not search?
-Harish
dont need “search” when you have “natural language location.” visit the link above and watch the videos on my theory and principals.
so, what happens if I try to go to… PhotoshopLocator.com hm nothing.
tutoriallocator.com?
politicslocator.com?
friendslocator.com?
Also with browsers adding “smart address bars” i can just type tutorials in firefox and i will get a bunch of places. I could use the search bar over the browser and search for anything.
Do you have an idea of the amount of domains you have to buy to address all the interests in the world?
lolec. appreciate your input.
how many sections does Yahoo have to address interests of its users? How many sections does its classifieds section have. say there is 30-40 sections in all. My 1300 channels vehemently attacks those 40 niches. Find one locator and you will instantly be introduced to a master personalized natural language location engine and social network.
It only takes one good “my” domain+location domain to fully structure all the internets content in a simple uniform natural language manner. Got it. Plus i have a strategic network of 1300 other locator channels working for the network.
example government.mylocator.com, personalized natural language location. I can prefix.mylocator.com for every subject imagineable. Only i have the ability to then point the domain GovernmentLocator.com to that channel plus i offer custom you@governmentlocator.com forwarding email addresses and a subsites of there choice. this separates all your incoming email into Email Location Communication Channels. This can be repeated for over 1300 natural language locator channels. Something that has never been done before in such a strategic fashion. imagine having your stale yahoo email prefix automatically funcitional on a family of over 1300 locator channels. On the fly you now communitcate with others using these custom email channels and it helps to organize your emails as they come in and keep your anchor email private.
We own enough premium location channels to get the job done.
MyLocator.com has the capacity to breed personalized multichannel natural language location based services for users and businesses like no other network or strategy on the internet.
StrategyLocator.com- Prepare Yourself.
“$3 billion and $20 billion”
Wow, that’s some accurate and precise valuation.
3 billion is already an awesome number
Yeah but 20 even more !
MySpace was a revolution of its own…not only was it amazing for social media, but all the Layout sites, etc. that arose from it made mad money…still do. Facebook had its own thing with Apps and I assume many people are making decent money with being app developers?
Both are same, but unique in their own ways.
Not just layouts, also comment graphics, which are somewhat like greeting cards, custom interface buttons are very popular now, music player skins, various “kool writing” font generators, UTF8 screen name symbols, profile “trackers” to see who’s looking at you, bands buying “plays” to show how popular they are, and now apps, customizing apps, hacking apps, always something new on Myspace.
And listen to this SEO/SEM people, there’s a rumor your Myspace friends will affect your PageRank.
How many of those unique logins are spammers?
Still counts as a customer.
a unique spammer
social advertising?? hmm…. adsense you mean
http://12tb.com
this reminds me of the mac comeback. despite the negative comment, they’ve actually come back pretty strong!
Not bad at all. With print media dropping, it was a good time for newscorp to venture into the online world.
And how much would each user be worth?
Just wondering…..
use the lowest range, so anything above and beyond that is just cake
I think you mean frosting.
Independently from what happens in 3 yrs from now this was a smart move (in terms of profits & ROI for Murdoch) no matter how you twist it
What I want to know is how much top line is generated from ads. In my view that chunk will really come under pressure. Probably time of SG&A management, but i guess regardless the acquisition was very smart.
and how much has value of even real profit generating companies like google and microsoft and apple fallen since those valuations?
I’m curious… the post says Myspace is profitable. A) How does the writer know this? B) More importantly… what are the margins? A $1 million profit is “profitable” but I’d hardly call that successful!
There are a tons of social networks and myspace is one of very few networks that is raking in revenue. Last December their average time on site was around 30 min, I wonder what it is now.
$580 million in 2005 is a good value IF…. the discounted cash flow looks good going forward. so far, i’d say the fiscal jury is still out on that front and the odds are (given the historically very poor performance of ads on myspace and economic climate) that myspace won’t ultimately justify the price without better means of monetizing the traffic.
also — the FIM shop has a lot of properties under its roof and the revenue contribution or (more importantly) profitability should not be downplayed unless the books are open to examination on that front. and the acquisition prices of those other properties need to be factored into any evaluation of FIM’s success.
super site
http://www.MetroSexxx.com
Really? Not even a bs comment, just spam-bam-thank-you-ma’am?
Yours is a BS comment. LOL.
Sure, it’s google that is taking the loss. This site can be operated by 150 people, not 1500. look at Craigslist
They are taking a backseat to facebook now
They both suck because social networks in general suck…but of the two, Myspace made the whole concept popular (forget Friendster) and Facebook is the copycat. And #1 in the world? Who cares. What matters is who is #1 in the U.S. - This is where most entertainment companies get their revenue and where trends typically start and stop.
Facebook really needs to go away - its pitiful copy of Myspace hasn’t doesn’t the web world any good. If Facebook hadn’t showed up, this whole social networking fad would have been nearly over by now.
“And #1 in the world? Who cares. What matters is who is #1 in the U.S. - This is where most entertainment companies get their revenue and where trends typically start and stop.”
Dude, you’re arrogant. And I live in the US. It’s also not where most entertainment companies get their revenue if you begin to count Europe as a single entity. Also the large Asian markets are very profitable for entertainment companies (Depends on genre of course).
i do agree #1 in usa matters most. but facelames like to brag about being number 1 in the world.
Interesting post
“$3 billion and $20 billion” - any other business - they would fire the analyst that came up with that spread - then find the guy that hired him - and fire him too.
How much of that $850 million is from GOOG gaurantees? How much of that is from other media properties (which you failed to mention were also purchased for some hefty bucks). Nice way to slip in how it is “majority MySpace revs” - last check - FOX does not break out the rev lines for the FIM properties.
IGN which is part of FIM was purchased for $650 million. IGN generated $28 million in revs in the first half of 2005 alone prior to News Corp acquisition. And how about Scout Media acquisition… undisclosed price - and rev generator, at least when purchased in 2005.
You guys are beginning to sound very much like certified FIX (FOX) News journalist. Hmm - shall we say FIX(FOX)Crunch - with a Talking Points Memo.
Rich Greenfield over at Pali got the same talking points a couple of days ago - makes sense - bleed it out it bits one “fix (fox) byte” a day.
Yes MySpace generates revenues - but please stop the hype - News Corp is in trouble just like everyone else…. tough times ahead. And Murdoch is getting nervous. Let’s see if Google renews it next 3 year contract with MySpace - Eric Schmidt’s own admisson - they are struggling to monetize socialnets. Come to think of it - there may be a line or two regarding MySpace-GOOG deal in GOOG earnings call on Thursday - and perhaps the reason for the sudden flow of these “fix (fox) bytes”.
“MySpace is actually making a profit”
Where did you see that???
That’s such a bad photo of Chris. =p
nuts o billions!
http://www.Social-Networking.Drewryonline.net
3 billion divided by 73 million is about 41 bucks per unique visitor. BUT! That’s only the US visitors. What’s their global number of’em?
I’ve been keeping my eyes on this industry for a while and ‘ve seen companies being sold from 70$/unique user to 5 $/u.u. I understand it depends on the content and all, but 41 or even 20 bucks per u.u. for MySpace sounds too high.
And I’ve only looked at the lower end of the valuation!…
$850 million in revenues in Ads alone?
http://pinki.com
let me see…. News Corp has a market cap of $22 billion, revenues of $33billion for fiscal 08, and net income of $5.4 billion.
please please please tell me how myspace has a valuation of $3billion to $20 billion with sub $1billion in rev and nominal if any profits.
what am i missing here? are you doing some crazy new form of valuation derivative swaps that nobody can see or understand.
if myspace is not throwing up $164 in NET income, it looks like it’s still an igly duckling for the NWS cfo.
One of their best business moves was opening up their own ad platform and Music site. Myspace Music will probably be worth more than any of the rest of the site.
Someone needs to adopt this concept: http://www.ihatemisty.com/?id=.....j02twpg9ai
I think buying the company was and is one of the smartest investments Murdoch could have or ever will make. Having the courage and creative mind to put money into this hot and upcoming social media network put his name down in the books. If he plays his cards right, there is no telling where Myspace will go in the future.
In order to stay ahead of the game however, he needs a smart team of young and intelligent students to communicate with what the people of this generation do and don’t like. It is important to add new items that are useful, not just another annoying tool you can put on your page that will clutter the screen or make your computer slow. We want what other people don’t have already. Continue to provide us with the avenue in which we can achieve this and we will be happy!
I just love Myspace! I dont know what I would do without it!
Jiff
http://www.privacy-tools.at.tc
Maybe it is time that members realize that being a part of the myspace community is very much like being a share cropper. You grow the food, but you cant own the land that you cultivate. You are only allowed a few crumbs to survive until your hard labor produces the next crop.
It is time for the community to take back their content and to receive a benefit for the fruits of their content an actions.
At adelph.us we believe that members that are selling products and members that build a strong community following can work hand in hand. We belive that giving all members of the community the ability to earn revenue and build intrest is a key to having a community where there always exist an opportunity to create and share.
All products that are added to a members adelph.us store are automatically available for resell by any other members of the community. The default affiliate rate for all products in adelph.us stores is 5% of the product sale price. Sellers can opt to change this to a higher rate.
All members have the option of sharing the revenue from product sells with; friends, or groups.
In addition to this adelph.us will donate a portion of its revenue to the adelph.us community bank each time a product is sold.
When a member sees a product on adelph.us that the would like to sell; all they need to do to is click the “Resell This” link that is at the bottom of all product details pages. Once this is done the product is added to the members store where it is available for purchase by other members.
I am a fan of both myspace and facebook for different reasons, but the growth of myspace and the phenomena made possible by this type of platform are what inspired me to follow my own passion in the form of a social network. I hope both of those sites are around for many years to come and that they make 10s of billions of dollars doing it. Just my two dollars on the issue.