Around the Net
MySpace Shopping For New Search Partner
- The Wall Street Journal et al., Tuesday, July 6, 2010 12:07 PM
"Under the existing deal, Google agreed to make up to $900 million in guaranteed payments for the right to sell small ads as users surf and tap out searches on News Corp.'s MySpace.com and on a handful of smaller News Corp. Web sites," reports The Journal. "But recently, MySpace has fallen far short of Web traffic and other milestones laid out in the Google contract."
"That deal expires at the end of August and News Corp. is in talks for narrower agreements," Reuters points out -- "narrower," in this case, meaning that any new agreement would be for much less money.
"MySpace needs to find another company willing to pay them for the opportunity to advertise to their decreasing number of users," writes Marketing Pilgrim. "They need to do this at a time when their executive suite has installed a revolving door to more easily handle the traffic in and out of the offices ... It also comes at a time when the best company MySpace can find itself in is in the major Internet property rehab wing with Yahoo and Aol."
TechCrunch, meanwhile, suggests that The Journal -- owned by the same parent company as MySpace -- conveniently failed to mention the fact that Fox Audience Network, which serves most of the ads on MySpace, is "supposedly on a tear" with their self-service platform. "Our understanding is that News Corp.'s goal is to grow FAN to the point where MySpace doesn't need an outside partner for search advertising."
Also omitted from The Journal story is TechCrunch's contention that "FAN is definitely up for sale by News Corp., and at least one bidder -- Silver Lake Partners (they own part of Skype, and made a failed bid to invest in Facebook) -- has made an offer." To be clear, "If FAN is sold, it's a solid bet that MySpace will quickly be sold, too. The two companies live off each other."
