MySpace
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- Wikipedia
- Friendster accounts
- Founded 2003
- Was the major social media platform, circa 2006-2008
- Purchased by News Corp (over Viacom) 7/05 for $580 million
- Internet advertising platform
- Drive traffic to other properties
- Most visited web-site, 7/06
- Google advertising deal, $900 million
- Enabled launch of other successful projects, like YouTube, FlickR, Artic Monkeys (pirating roots)
- Valued at $12 billion at its peak
- Social media, not yet mature when MySpace dominated (100m accounts, 2006), versus Facebook's 1.2 billion accounts in 2013
- Surpassed by Facebook, 2008
- Demise
- Issues with sensitive content, malware, spam, porn, fake accounts etc
- Portal strategy, versus adding new social features
- Internal development versus relying on healthy ecosystem
- Advertising heavy, versus Facebook's clean interface
- Site redesign issues, overall design usability, not clean
- Fleeing users, tipping point
- Controlled app development internally, rather than app ecosystem.
- OpenSocial API published 2/08, Gaming Platform, Zynga launches apps etc. (too late)
- Timberlake et al purchases for $35 million, 6/11
- Broad to niche: Now a complementary social media network (niche), not a Facebook rival
- new Myspace, 1/13, open beta. Rebranding site: Creative community. iPhone app 6/13