NOTE MYSPACE.COM HAS A HIGHER NIELSEN RATING THAN MTV
A community will only evolve when a people control their own communicationsIn The man who put teenagers' lives online
A glimpse into the world of Chris deWolfe founder of myspace.com
Chris explains that, they pinched all the other cool stuff from Craigslist, Evite, MP3.com and stuck it all together in a way that they thought would make the most sense to their users.
Unconcerned with technological bells and whistles and geeky one-upmanship, they instead set out to appeal to the people they knew and, beyond them, the youth tribes of middle America. DeWolfe repeatedly describes MySpace not as a networking site but a "next generation portal", a phrase pinched by Murdoch to describe the way in which the site can act as a kind of sticky glue for all kinds of other content.
But clearly myspace appeals to far more than the youth tribes of middle America.
We didn't get bogged down in creating the next new technology podcasting RSS thingamajiggy, we looked at how people live their lives." It appeals, he says, to a generation rejecting the "segmented and narrow" choices of traditional media and used to selecting from thousands of songs on their iPod, hundreds of cable channels or millions of websites.
And the competition?
We're never arrogant, we're always looking at the competition. But they have not been successful for a couple of reasons. The intent to socialise on a site like Yahoo! isn't really there because the brand doesn't necessarily stand for anything and there's no real voice to it
And we know that Yahoo are working hard to socialise their portal, bringing in some very interesting people to help develop a more social stickiness to their offering. Yahoo socializes search
I wonder what Bradley Horowitz has got to say about that? Also worth a read
But lets go mobile deWolfe shares his views on how mobile will become an essential part of their strategy
The mobile platform will be huge for us and I think everyone will be accessing MySpace through their mobile device. There's also some brand extensions that we're very excited about, along the lines of our record label
The Guardian sums up
And as the MySpace generation grows up, he expects them to stick with the site and others like it, transforming the media landscape in as yet unforeseen ways. As long as the site can retain the spirit of LA, rather than the buttoned-down financial logic of Wall Street, he is sure it will have the lasting influence of an eBay rather than the passing attraction of a Friendster. Ultimately, though, he says, MySpace's future is in the hands of its growing army of users. "They're defining the experience, not us. We're just letting it rip."
As my great friend Lalit Sarna said
The Power of human connection and relationships is stronger than any algorithm, it can mutate paradigms and cause tectonic plate shifts in the underlying fabrics of markets and economies of scale. Brands who harness this power by bringing like minded like impassioned users together will see exponential returns that create a win win scenario for all, brands who resist will be forced to catch up
Further reading
mobile myspace, and the relationship between brands and communities
What myspace means A one day event organised by the Engagement Alliance
David Tebbutt's notes from that same event
Alan, Thanks for the link. I am eagerly awaiting your book from Amazon! I have been doing some work on brand measurement online and would be interested in speaking to you on this subject. If you are interested in chatting, please contact me. You can either reach me through the comments on my blog, the email address I included with this comment, or my ringing me on 020 7378 3600.
Posted by: Heather Hopkins | July 12, 2006 at 12:18 AM