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MySpace's Melting Makes Murdoch Mad
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:33 AM
from the ems-on-monday dept.
from the ems-on-monday dept.
Barence writes "Facebook has overtaken rival social network MySpace for the first time — provoking an angry outburst from Rupert Murdoch, the man who paid $580m for MySpace only three years ago."
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Mad? Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've read the linked article a few times and I'm not sure where there is anything to indicate he is mad. Nice use of alliteration though. I did find this article about the difference in growth [zdnet.com.au] between the two sites and it has a lot more information about the situation in general, though nothing about Murdoch's reaction. I couldn't find anything more about that - like where and when he said the things they say he said, what the tone was, etc.
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Or maybe he took some photos of himself pouting with a camera held at arms length and used some program to overlay them with sparkly letter lyrics from taking back sunday, describing how much of a self-sacrificing saint (in sepia) he is for a world that just doesn't care.
Of course he already does this somewhat with the WSJ...
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
"Murdoch Mostly Mopes; Missing Money Makes Monday More Melancholy."
Slashdot submission sure sucks.
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
=)
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
(that's right, mod me funny, you know you wanna)
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Interesting bit of irony, that (Score:5, Insightful)
Having that statement applied TO Rupert Murdoch, rather than BY Rupert Murdoch.
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
We call it "Faux" news because it is. Learn this: Fox went to court and defended its right to knowingly broadcast untruth as news because the law does not specifically say they can't. Again, in case you still don't get it: Fox defended its right to broadcast lies that they knew were lies.
And that, among other reasons*, is why it is "faux".
http://www.2dca.org/opinion/February%2014,%202003/2D01-529.pdf [2dca.org]
http://www.foxbghsuit.com/ [foxbghsuit.com]
* blending opinion with news and calling it objective
putting only one political view on the air and calling themselves "balanced"
reporting as factual news (and almost verbatim) the "talking points" released by the GOP
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fox news isn't doing anything different from NBC, CBS and ABC. Most notably, exploding trucks, and fake documents. And these are the cases where they got caught.
I'd rather get my news and opinions from people who are knowingly biased, than from people who try to say that they are reporting the news unbiasedly. At least I know the slant, and it makes it easier to dismiss the BS.
The point is, take the news you get with a grain of salt, no matter what your source is. Additionally, get your news from a variety of Points of View, as the truth usually lies (pun intended) in between.
The only idiots I know, get all their news from single sources. They don't listen to alternative views because they can't actually use their heads to filter the news. This goes to both lefties and righties.
I also suggest that if you're railing against "Faux News", that you also rail against the others that end up doing the same thing, manufacturing "news" and "facts".
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but try to give those companies some names as clever as "Faux." Whenever I turn my parody-demon loose on "CBS" I draw a blank. (Yes, comedians, I'm issuing you a challenge.)
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
CBS. We put the BS in news. What you C, is BS. CBS. News for the BS college graduate.
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not true, while I'm not an expert on news, I did spend some time in college studying it.
As any journalist knows having two extremists from both sides does not constitute balance. It just means that you've got extremists from both sides. No reputable news organization would employ the individuals that Fox news does. The appearance of bias, even if it isn't real, is something which damages the credibility of a network.
Fox got in trouble because they weren't giving equal air to the other side of issues while at the same time professing to be the most fair and balanced news network on TV. Anybody who's seen the programming knows that's not the case. If it were the case there'd be a more diverse group objecting to it. Rather than just one side of the political spectrum.
Just look at the Dan Rather incident, he wasn't even responsible for that content, and he got shit canned for it. Rather's job on the show was to read the news, whatever was given to him and do the show, shows like that never have the anchor do much beyond that and a few interviews.
As far as myspace goes, it was obvious at the time that he over payed for the site. IIRC at the time myspace was hugely popular, but was somewhat lacking in profitability. For it to have been a decent deal, it would have had to have been making at least 40m a year with a strong brand. And as it turned out the brand just wasn't that strong. I'm sure it can still earn a decent profit, but it was a poor investment in the first place.
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Dan Rather (Score:5, Informative)
"Just look at the Dan Rather incident, he wasn't even responsible for that content, and he got shit canned for it. Rather's job on the show was to read the news, whatever was given to him and do the show, shows like that never have the anchor do much beyond that and a few interviews."
That's a crock, sir. Dan Rather was not an innocent bystander in the reporting of that story. He wasn't a stiff mannequin that simply read what the teleprompter told him to say. He was deeply involved in the preparation of that story, and got fired because he refused to refute it, even when evidence proved the documents were faked with a word processor. And to this day, he still defends the writers and fact checkers of that story, all evidence that they screwed up to the contrary.
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
What does this have to do with it. They went to court and Newscorp lawyers argued that their program "which they call news" had the right to broadcast information they knew was false and the right to fire journalists with enough integrity to refuse. Whatever else that makes them, it is completely untrustworthy as a source for facts.
Who picks the hosts? Who fires the people who refuse to tell lies. Sorry, you can't shift the blame away from a corporation that is not trying to inform, but persuade. They just aren't news.
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that there's consistent support from the hosts on one side of the debate, thus making it invariably two on one.
And that's ignoring that their NEWS shows also show rampant bias, poor to nonexistant fact-checking, and deliberate propaganda reporting, as well as just plain dirty tricks (Such as their constant "Obama/Osama" name slip-ups. I'm not saying that they can't have pundits, I'm saying that their regular newscasters, who are positioned as NEWSCASTERS, are engaging in propaganda and punditry while claiming to be delivering factual and unbiased coverage.
As for Keith Olberman... even while delivering an opinion column, the man has an infinitely better record on vetting his sources and producing factual, correct news than Fox News ever has. That's a bad sign, that is.
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
``Republican'' is synonymous with ``American'' now? Who are you, Joe McCarthy?
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Post... (Score:5, Funny)
Facebook won't last (Score:5, Interesting)
Now facebook is even spammier than myspace, with hundreds of applications I can't stand, and all their invites. I have to "add" an application in order to view it. I don't want to view it. I don't want a "drink" invitation, or a "pirate" invitation. Leave me alone.
This is why I quit Facebook [fredrickville.com]
Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh god. HOW?! I've been looking, but I can't find anything to do that.
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Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Insightful)
All of these sorts of things tend to collapse under their own weight. When they start out, they're being created by people who are passionate about it and doing it because they care/enjoy working on it. Then it grows and more people sign up and suddenly there's a potential for some money to be made exploiting it. And that's what happens. The advertisers and spammers move in in full force, deals are made in order to afford all the new servers needed to keep up with traffic, and more and more people keep joining just because their friends told them they should.
The ratio of signal to noise gets skewed to the point where it becomes hard to use, and that combined with the general fickleness of people (especially the younger people that make up a significant portion of the userbase), means that the eyeballs go elsewhere. And at the end of the day, nothing that myspace or facebook or any social networking site does is really all that complicated. There are plenty of other websites out there that are offering ways to communicate with other people.
I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but the churn and turn over seems to be pretty consistent. Before facebook everyone talked about myspace. Before myspace everyone talked about orkut. Before orkut everyone talked about livejournal, etc... All those sites still exist, but today facebook is the one that people are writing headlines about. A couple years down the line some new upstart will be getting all the attention. It's just the way it is, and investing in one of these sites like it's going to be the next amazon or google is pretty silly.
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Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Insightful)
You just summed up almost all businesses in general, not just social networking ones.....
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Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither of them will disappear entirely. One isn't going to crush the other. What's going to happen is that the masses will get tired of both of them, and move on to something new. There will still be some plenty of diehards who refuse to switch, and most of their current users will still keep and check on their accounts every once-in-a-while. But the bulk of the daily traffic will move to some newer, lightweight site that has a couple of novel ideas/features. And that site will be the big thing until it gets too bloated and tired, and then the cycle will repeat itself again.
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Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Funny)
I recommend "friendster" :P
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Maybe it's because (Score:5, Insightful)
People are tired of being linked to a page that has crappy layout, crappy embedded video or music that plays automatically, is full of lolspeak and/or textype, and is so random that it makes a schizophrenic feel confused.
oh wait.......
Re:Maybe it's because (Score:5, Informative)
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aargh (Score:5, Informative)
No more pirate/vampire/werewolf invitations, please...
Facebook started off a great site, fast, clean design, it's now incredibly slow and hard todo anything, whereas myspace actually is improving.
Still waiting for a mybook, or facespace to integrate the messaging.
Re:aargh (Score:5, Funny)
Merge facebook and myspace? Yes! Everyone will want to come on MyFace!
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Makes Murdoch Mad? (Score:5, Funny)
Duh (Score:5, Funny)
How could a UI disaster that informs a user who has problems logging in that "you must be logged in to do that?" and that lacks any kind of official published API possibly win?
hey murdoch (Score:5, Insightful)
friendster
xanga
geocities
tripod
etc.
and don't worry about facebook, in a few short years, it too will be a hasbeen, replaced by whatever site is the new trend
social networking sites are nothing but trends. they have the limelight for a few years, then they fade. think of them as the bell bottoms and ankle warmers and member's only jackets of the web. here today, master of everything, gone tomorrow, utterly forgotten
so how do you make money off of them?
you make money off of social networking sites by becoming extremely powerful, then seducing some tragically unhip media conglomerate to buy you for gabazillions, then you sleep all day and party all night
so congratulations murdoch, you have a place in "new media" after all: the patsy left holding the bag
Re:hey murdoch (Score:5, Insightful)
You speak truth, but the hard reality here is the 500 million plus that Murdoch paid for MySpace was an absolute steal.
If Facebook is valued at $15 billion, it's very safe to assume that MySpace is worth at least half that. Odds are it's closer to twice that but, even with this hyper-unrealistically conservative measure, it's clear that Murdoch made a good investment.
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it was worth the money (Score:5, Interesting)
the error is in how murdoch quantified what he was purchasing, the perception of what he was actually getting for his money: the error is in thinking you are buying a permanent piece of major real estate on the web. no, what you are buying is a major marketing and branding tool for a few years... which is indeed still worth $500 million
for his $500 million, he gets a few years of ad revenue, some "showing soon" movie marketing hype, some cross-branding possibilities, steering a few kids towards a fox reality show, etc. but after a few years run, the site is worth bupkus
as for facebook's $15 billion, all i can do is laugh. $15 billion?! insane. because facebook too will be worth the gum on my sneaker in a few years. facebook is worth what myspace is worth: $500 million
zuckerman or zuckerberg or whatever the kids name: he should have sold facebook out. hes going to be like that friendster guy is today in a few years: the friendster guy daily kicks himself in the ass for not selling out when he could have. zuckerdude is thinking he has the next google on his hands. no, he has the next xanga. sell out kid, asap
thats how you really make money on social networking sites: you sell out to established media conglomerates, and then go play frisbee. to keep a hold of the site, and thinking you are going to become a permanent internet portal, like google, is hubris, arrogance, egotism. unless you are planning to seque into becoming a search engine, and somehow actually take out google... heh, googd luck. but that's the only sound strategy to take if you plan on keeping the social networking site rather than selling out, upping the ante and going for the diamond ring
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minus the google ads (Score:5, Funny)
its called craigslist
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Who would've thought (Score:5, Insightful)
That investing extremely large sums of money based on the momentary whims of teenagers and early twenty-somethings wasn't such a great idea? The winds of the internet can shift in an instant, and it seems like Murdoch hasn't caught on to that yet. Of course, it won't be long before The Next Big Thing comes along, and Facebook will be in the same spot that MySpace is right now.
Idea (Score:5, Funny)
FlashFaceSpace. It will combine the wonderful-nonannoying-awesomeness that is Flash, the unobtrusiveness of Facebook applications, and the customizability of MySpace to create the ultimate social networking site of DEATH. This will blow MySpace, Facebook and every other social networking site out of the water.
cold fusion FTL (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact that the site was developed using Cold Fusion should have signaled the first sign of its impending demise.
just maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
If myspace pages didn't suck so bad, there wouldn't be a problem. I don't even consider Facebook and MySpace rivals. Facebook is so far beyond MySpace, it isn't even worth discussing.
Facebook's days are numbered, I'm sure. Something will come along to replace it in the next couple of years...unless it is able to evolve.
Should have spent more money on tech? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know how bad Facebook is, but think of every story, every complaint you've ever had about Myspace, technology-wise.
It's worse than that.
Simple example: Trying to pull tour dates from Myspace. Too much to expect that they'd have a working iCal feed, or that they'd put hCal on the page. Fine, we'll scrape the HTML, no problem...
No, the real WTF moment was the month (I think, might've been more) during which none of the calendars worked.
People joke about Twitter being unable to scale, but really, you'd think with the amount of money Myspace pulls in, they'd be able to hire one good tech person? I'm guessing that's a major reason people are going to Facebook.
MySpace is horribly buggy. FaceBook Isn't (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had no end of trouble with MySpace. I'm not able to prevent my music from playing when you load my page, even though that's how I set it in my profile. I've always allowed downloads of my MP3s, but at some point they stopped being downloadable. I had to delete them all and re-upload them to get the downloads back.
I have actually found MySpace pages that had been customized in such a way as to make FireFox crash just by loading the page!
My only complaint about FaceBook is that it doesn't allow for downloading MP3s - but that's a lack of a desired feature, and not an actual bug.
Most young people these days are trying out both. I don't think it takes much time for them all to figure out which one is better.
Re:A shill for the State gets his just deserts (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:A shill for the State gets his just deserts (Score:5, Funny)
MySpace, though, is the anti-thesis of government. It's about freedom. People don't necessarily realize that, but that's the end result from allowing people to freely communicate, gather and entertain.
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Re:A shill for the State gets his just deserts (Score:5, Funny)
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