• Fortune, Friday, September 14, 2007 11 AM

While some big media firms try to create high-trafficked online destinations to rival MySpace and Facebook, Viacom's strategy has been to create hundreds of microsites for its many brands. However, critics have wondered how the MTV parent plans to tie it all together.

The answer, it seems is, Flux, a social media system that allows MTV users to personalize pages with social networking tools like blogs, photos, videos and friends. The personalized pages will appear when users sign into any MTV or third-party site in the Flux network. Most importantly, users will be able to save to material from the network's 20 launch partners to their Flux page. Users will also be able to post Flux network material to their MySpace and Facebook pages, too.

One thing Flux does is eliminate the tedious process of registering for each new MTV microsite. MTV also hopes that the social media features will make those sites stickier, and provide tie-ins for its television brands. Viacom execs are adamant that Flux is not an answer to MySpace, but rather a means of tying together MTV's many brands.

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