User-generated marketing on MySpace : Vision for the future

In July 2005, eyebrows were raised when media giant Rupert Murdoch acquired the online social network MySpace for an estimate USD $580 million.

Even though MySpace was growing in popularity especially amongst the tech-savvy young adults in the US, with an insignificant amount of user (8,210 in April 2005), a less than lucrative revenue pipeline through sparse on-site advertisements, and a questionable, if not, non-existent business plan, the future of MySpace appeared, at best, to be promising, but uncertain.

A year into the consolidation, the impact of New Corp's acquisition is evident: In August 2006, MySpace is the most popular US social network sites with 55 million users and it continues to gain tail speed as its competitors trail behind by an ever-growing margin. The News Corp-MySpace matrimony marked the beginning of growing industrial interests in this new breed of internet-based communities that are known for their interactive, collaborative and connected user base.

While the new owners are eager to tap into the highly lucrative consumer base, there is an inherent conflict that may make or break the future of such matrimony.

Already News Corp is introducing aggressive advertising campaigns as a means to monetize on the growing user base.

However, the inundation of pop-up ads, on-site ads and other classical push-based online marketing tricks are leaving social networkers frustrated with the platform.

Given that the core assets of MySpace are the users, and user loyalty amidst the growing saturation of the social network market is steadily decreasing, the move towards commercialization is a precarious and potentially detrimental move. This paper will use the case of News Corp and MySpace as a point-of-departure in examining how traditional media can make use of social networks to engender a new way of engaging and conversing with consumers.

Using the US market as contextual backdrop of this research, the aim of this paper is of twofold: I begin by investigat